LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



The Library 
of Congress 

AFTWSTOMSdL 



AND 



SWEET COMFORT. 



MESSAGES FOR THE YOUNG. 



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By Rev. C. C. Albertson 

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yiemins 1b. IRevell Compang. 

Chicago : New York : 

148 and 150 madison street. | 12 bible house, astor place. 

: : publishers of Evangelical literature. : :■ 



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ISA- 



Entered according to act of Congreas in the year eighteen hundred 

and ninety-one by Fleming H. Revell Company in the 

office of the Librarian of Congress at 

Washington. 



TO 

THE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN OF OUR LAND, IN 
WHOM RESTS ALL THE HOPES OF CHURCH AND 
STATE, THESE SERMONS ARE AFFECTIONATELY 
DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR, WHOSE HEART 
BEATS IN UNISON WITH THEIRS, AND YEARNS IN 
SINCERE LOVE FOR THEIR SALVATION. 

C. C. A. 

January i, 1891. 



"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, 
while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when 
thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them." — Solomon. 



INDEX. 
I. 

WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 7 

II. 

WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 22 

III. 

WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 38 

IV. 

HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? S7 

V. 

WHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? .... 76 

VI. 

WHAT AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 93 

VII. 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE — THE COMING KING- 
DOM 115 

VIII. 

THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD — THE 

CITY OF GOD 137 



COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 



WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 

" And this is life eternal, that they might 
know Thee } the only true God, and Jesus 
Christ, whom thou hast sent. 11 — John xvii. j. 

SEATED here to-night, silent while you 
were singing, my thoughts have can- 
vassed many a theme. I have asked 
myself, For what are all these people here? 
I am not sufficiently egotistic to persuade my- 
self that you have come solely to hear the 
minister. You are seeking something that 
will help you, and do you good in life. That 
you may not be disappointed in your quest, 
I have prayed that He whose name is but an- 
other form of "good" may grant you, accord- 
ing to the riches of His grace, "exceeding 
abundantly above all that you ask or think." 
I have queried, too, For what purpose am I 
here? Not to entertain. Not to amuse. Cer- 

7 



COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 



tainly not to court your favorable mention. 
Rather, to speak the words that you have 
come to hear. I will be happy if I may be 
but the mouth-piece of my Master, able to 
say, like Ehud of ancient ages, "I have a 
message from God unto thee." Even if my 
lips were dumb, I would delight to point with 
mute but speechful motions to a hill-top of 
history, whose summit bears a Roman cross, 
on which there hangs the form of One, bleed- 
ing and pleading — the form of Him, by whom, 
"God, who at sundry times, and in divers 
manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by 
the prophets, hath spoken unto us" the words 
we are dying to hear. 

Said an eminent divine, who still preaches 
to large multitudes across the sea: "The sole 
purpose of all true preaching is the prepara- 
tion of character for Heaven." Before me are 
hundred of young men and women, whose spir- 
itual welfare has been the burden of my morn- 
ing, noontime, and evening prayers. And I am 
not alone in my solicitude for you. There 
are others, nearer to you than the minister 
can be, whose prayers have risen, and whose 
tears have fallen a thousand times in your be- 



WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN 9 

half. Well I know that if the prayers of earth 
are kept on record in the archives of eternity, 
some time you may see a sacred book, on 
every page, and in every line of which, your 
names have been inscribed. Well I know 
that if the ransomed souls in glory, whose 
feet, once weary with the toilsome paths of 
life, now touch the shining sands "which meet 
the crystal sea with many a caress," if ever 
angels plead before the throne in soulful song 
or importunate petition, more than tongue 
can tell, your names have been repeated by 
those who once were yours, whose lips have 
taken the sacrament of dust. 

Now, to be perfectly candid, my only aim 
in the series of sermons, of which this dis- 
course is the first, is to persuade you who are 
unsaved to give your lives and love to God, 
and to start you in the King's Highway of 
Holiness. At another time, I will ask you in 
plainest language, Will you not become a 
Christian? But before I address such a ques- 
tion to you, or expect an answer, it is proper 
that we should consider together what it means 
to be a Christian, what preparation such an 



10 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

act involves, and what responsibilities, if any, 
it entails. 

That is a wise bit of advice embodied in the 
old motto-proverb, "Count the cost." He is 
inexcusably reckless, if not criminally care- 
less, who engages in any important enterprise, 
or takes any fateful step, without first weigh- 
ing the matter in the balances of deliberate 
judgment. Mr. Ruskinsays: "In nothing is 
a gentleman better to be discerned from a 
vulgar person than in this: his feelings and act- 
ions are the just results of due contemplation 
and of equal thought." If this be true, that it 
is a mark of gentle breeding to enter hastily 
into no undertaking, then let us show our- 
selves gentlemen and gentlewomen, by decid- 
ing advisedly, and discreetly, what shall be 
our attitude toward Christianity. And be 
assured that such a course of action is not only 
prudent, and refined, but Scriptural, as well. 
Like leaves on the velvet aisles of the autumn 
forests, or, like stars, blossoming in the in- 
finite meadows of midnight, so, liberally and 
plentifully, over the pages of God's revealed 
Word are scattered invitations to reason 
about, ponder over, and weigh carefully the 



WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 11 

doctrines of religion. "Come now, and let us 
reason together. Think on these things; and 
be ready always to give an answer to every 
man that asketh you a reason." 

When the Man of Galilee brushed the dew 
from the Judean lilies, as He went about do- 
ing good, and preaching the gospel of the 
kingdom, He called around Him men whom 
He afterward commissioned to go forth into 
all the world as his ambassadors. But, be- 
fore He admitted them to his discipliship, 
and delegated to them authority as his repre- 
sentatives, He impressed upon them the serious 
fact that their work was to be no easy task, 
no merry May-day picnic, no life of luxury 
and delirious delight, but an earnest, painful, 
and outwardly unattractive warfare. Just as, 
in recent years, the liberator of Italy cried to 
his gathering hosts, "Whosoever is in love 
with cold, hunger, disease, and death, let him 
come with me!" so the Nazarene set before 
his friends the difficulties they were to meet. 
"If any man will come after me, let him deny 
himself, take up his cross daily and follow 
me." And who was He, that they should 
follow him? A king? He wore upon his 



1% COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

head no crown, upon his form no purple robe. 
A rich man? He was penniless. Hospitable? 
He had nowhere to lay his head. Yet, crown- 
less, poor, and without a home, confessing 
himself such, He said, "Follow me." Follow 
him where? Everywhere — anywhere. "Down 

in the valley, or upon the mountain steep." 
Through direst poverty and persecution, or 

up to sun-gleaming glory. "Are ye able to 

drinkof the cup that I shall drink of?" You 

see, He bade them count the cost before they 

espoused his cause, lest some, having put 

their hands to the plow, might look back. 

Just as truly to-day as when the sands of 

Galilee were fresh with his footsteps, and the 

Temple's marble pavements echoed with his 

tread, He is saying, "Follow me." Let us 

reverently reflect before we make the choice. 

"This is life eternal, that they might know 

Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ 

whom thou hast sent." It needs no critcial 

exegesis, or subtle analysis of these words to 

understand their meaning. A sublime truth 

is declared in transparent Anglo-Saxon: to 

be a Christian is to be acquainted with God. 

That is to say, salvation is friendship with the 



WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 13 

Eternal Father. "Acquaint now thyself there- 
fore with the Lord, and be at peace." Then, 
it may be asked, What does acquaintance 
with God imply? To which I answer: 

I. First, an introduction to God, by which 
it is understood that sometime, somehow, 
somewhere, the soul comes into the presence 
of, and contact with, the Father; and whereas, 
before, it knew of God, by having seen His 
hand in nature, and His will in Providence, or 
by having heard His name spoken, or His 
grace extolled, now it knows Him, con- 
sciously and personally, feels the pressure of 
His guiding hand, the touch of His reconcil- 
ing kiss, and the pulsation of His immaculate 
heart. To know of God in his power to save 
from the guilt, power, and love of sin, is a 
precious boon. Myriads of earth's popula- 
tion have lived and died, and have never heard 
of Him to whom we pray; whose only con- 
ceptions of Deity have been extravagant per- 
sonifications of power and passion, as Jupiter, 
Jove, Vishnu, Odin, and Thor; but how much 
greater is the privilege of those whose ears 
have been banqueted, not only by the "precious 
name, O how sweet," but by the voice of the 



14 COUNSEL AND COMFORT, 

Blessed Father, saying, "I have called thee 
by name, thou art mine." 

But we are afar off from God, not in meas- 
urable material distance, but in character. 
We are aliens from him, and strangers, be- 
cause sinners. How can we be "made nigh?" 
Who will introduce us? Who can? Is there 
a mediator? If so, who is he? It is evident 
the intercessor must be one who knows both 
God and us. Can any man perform that 
office? Not so, for however familiar a man 
may be with the nature of his fellows, he, too, 
is foreign to the Father. Shall an angel wing 
his flight down from the crowned company, 
to bridge the breach? Equally true it is that 
no white-pinioned intelligence from the sky 
can bring together God and man, for, though 
he may have rejoiced with the morning stars, 
and shouted for joy with the sons of God in 
creation's morning, he is a stranger to the 
human race, does not know the results of sin, 
and hence, is incompetent to reconcile us to 
God. Where is the intercessor? Where? 

Behold in Jesus Christ the all-sufficient Ar- 
biter! Ecce Homo! Ecce Deus! "If ever 
man was God, or God man, He is both." As 



WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 15 

the Son of Man, he knows the language of 
humanity; as the Son of God, he knows the 
vernacular of Heaven. This is He, who, fa- 
miliar with the condition of man as with the 
heart of God, can conduct us into the presence 
of, and obtain for us mercy with, the King. 
"But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometime 
were afar off, are made nigh." Hear him: "No 
man knoweth the Father save the Son, and 
he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. 
No man cometh unto the Father but by me. I 
am the way, the truth, and the life." So, if 
we would know God, Christ must introduce 
us to Him. 

II. Next, acquaintance with God implies an 
approximate equality of standing. Not equal- 
ity of power, or wisdom, or purity, but of 
lineage. Only those of royal blood are friends 
of royalty. Kings and peasants, millionaires 
and woodchoppers, do not commingle. The 
rustic would be as uncomfortable in the 
presence of courtly society, as a monarch 
would be in the rude cabin of the charcoal- 
burner. 

God is the King, "eternal, immortal, invis- 
ible," the King of kings, the King above kings. 



10 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

All other kings that rule, rule on his territory. 
Caesar, and Alexander, and Charlemagne, were 
subject to his will. "By Him princes reign, 
and rulers decree justice." What are we that 
we may claim his friendship. "Poor, and mis- 
erable, and blind, and naked;" insects of an 
hour; dependents on His mercy; pensioners 
on His bounty. Yes — but kings and queens! 
When to the time-dimmed, but faith-clear 
vision of the Seer of Patmos, Heaven was 
opened, and he saw the pearly gates, the 
golden streets, the shady avenues, and the 
shimmering sea, and beheld the glory of an 
innumerable company, "ten thousand times 
ten thousand, in shining garments clad," his 
praise exultant voiced itself in song, "Unto 
Him that loved us, and washed us from our 
sins in His own blood, and hath made us 
kings, and priests unto God and His Father, 
to him be glory and dominion, forever and 
ever." When are we kings? Now. To be a 
Christian is to experience not alone a change 
of mind and of heart ,but a change of lineage. 
We are convicted of sin, converted by grace, 
and adopted into the family of God. "For 
we have received the spirit of adoption, 



WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 17 

whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Henceforth, 
I call you not servants, but friends. Heirs 
of God, and joint heirs with Christ. As many 
as received Him, to them gave he power to 
become the sons of God. Behold what man- 
ner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us 
that we should be called the sons of God. He 
that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I 
will be his God, and he shall be my son." 

Every Christian is a prince or prince&s. 
Every believer can say: 

" My Father is rich in houses and lands: 
Heholdeththe wealth of the worid in his hands." 

If this be true, then, what higher nobility 
can there be on earth than that of Christian- 
ity? What depths of poverty and woe cannot 
be made sunny as the eternal heights by a 
consciousness that the sufferer is a child of 
the infinite God? Peter the Great, of Russia, 
letf his throne, and went to a shipyard as an 
apprentice, to learn the trade of a shipbuilder. 
Think you not he was sustained in trials and 
toils by the knowledge that he was a monarch, 
only in disguise? It is so with many a Chris- 
tian. Poor, despised, forsaken, he is still 
happy all day long, for he knows his royal 



18 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

standing, though the world may know it not- 
I shall not soon forget a funeral I attended 
once, the funeral of an Indian queen, the 
heiress to large estates in the Wabash valley. 
The services were held in a grand cathedral. 
The church was filled. The coffin was gor- 
geous in purple and gold. The form of the 
dead queen was robed in a costly shroud. 
The dignitaries of the diocese were there. 
Bells tolled. The choir chanted. Priests in- 
toned. Sweet and solemn music floated from 
a thousand-throated instrument, among the 
Corinthian pillars. Incense rose from silver 
censers. And a long procession followed her 
to the tomb, because she was a queen. Now, 
I am thinking of another funeral I attended. 
It was not in a cathedral, but in the chapel of 
an unpretentious little mission church. Not 
many people were there. The coffin was fur- 
nished by charity. Paupers' coffins are not 
elegant — only plain pine boxes. No choir 
chanted. No organ rolled. It was the funeral 
of a girl of seventeen, who had supported her- 
self and her widowed mother by working in a 
flax-mill. Her hands were brown and bruised. 
They tried to hide her stained fingers with 



WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 19 

flowers, but they could not. Her mother laid 
her palsied hand on the dead girl's forehead 
in a last, long, lingering touch. Her mother's 
hands were gloved, but the gloves were ragged 
and torn, and so her withered fingers touched 
the dead girl's face. O God, what penury! 
O Christ, what poverty! Yet, that was a 
grander funeral than the other. It was the 
funeral of a princess in disguise, for that poor 
girl was a Christian, and as she died, she sang 
with feeble breath and parching lips: 

"A tent cr cottage, why need I care? 
The're building a palace for me over there, 
Though exiled from home, yet stilll may sing 
All glory to God, I'm the child of a King." 

III. Thirdly, acquaintance with God im- 
plies similarity of character. If among the 
circle of your acquaintance, there are tw r o 

souls that delight in each other's presence, 
seek each other's society, and are happy in 
each other's sight, and there are many such — 
modern Davids and Jonathans, you doubtless 
recall that they are persons of similar dispo- 
sitions, tastes, and tendencies. Poetic minds 
associate together. Philosophic natures move 
in the same orbit of companionship. Astron- 
omers seek the association of astronomers, 



20 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

mathematicians of mathematicians. Do not 
birds of the same genus, flock together? Do 
not persons of the same genus of mentality 
affiliate? It is the same in the realm of 
morals. The sober do not fraternize with the 
drunken, the industrious with the idle, the 
refined with the vulgar, or the decent with 
the dissolute. Character determines com- 
panionship. Character simulates thought. 
Character is determined by likes and dislikes. 
The Apostle enjoins us to "put on godliness," 
that is, to cultivate likeness to God. We 
cannot be His friends if we are not like Him. 
How can we attain a similarity of character 
to God? By learning to love what ha loves, 
and hate what he hates. He loves righteous- 
ness. Do we? He loathes sin. Do we? Do 
we loathe ourselves when we yield to the sin- 
syren, even for a moment? He yearns in 
affection for the wandering, and seeks to win 
them back to a clean life. Do we? In that 
same degree then, have we attained the char- 
acter of God. 

IV. Lastly, friendship with God implies a 
continuity of association. Americans in Eu- 
rope count it a great honor to be presented to 



WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 21 

the Queen of England, or the Emperor of Ger- 
many. An introduction and transient ac- 
quaintance is as much as they hope for. But 
our introduction to the Lord of Glory does not 
thus end. It is only the genesis of an endless 
commnuion with him. Enoch walked with 
God. So may we. Moses talked with God. 
So may we. I know a man who falls asleep 
conversing with God, and wakes with His 
name upon his lips. An aged German saint 
prayed, "O God, I thank thee that we are on 
the same old terms as ever." Many of us can 
truly claim, 

"The Saviour comes and walks with me, 
And sweet communion here have we; 
He gently leads me by the hand, 
For this is Heaven's border land." 

"The tabernacles of God are with men." 

"He holds me by his own right hand, 
And will not let me go, 
And lulls my troubled soul to rest, 
In Him who loves me so." 

Oh blissful union! Oh Heavenly com- 
munion — one with God on earth, one with 
him in Heaven! Brother, sister, friend, young 
man, maiden, be this your choice to night, be 
this your lot forever. 



II. 

WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 

"Godliness is profitable unto all things, 
having promise of the life that now is, and 
of that which is to come." — /. Timothy, iv. 8. 

THREE men stood within sight of the Niag- 
ara Falls, where the river, gathering its 
water from a thousand rills and rivulets, 
plunges it over rocks and crags, and breaks it 
into spray, and rainbow-tinted mist, which 
rises like incense toward heaven. One man 
wrote an ode upon the beauty of the scene. 
He was a poet. Another sketched upon can- 
vas the matchless picture. He was a painter. 
The third, with pencil and note-book, figured 
the probable amount of power which might be 
utilized if the unspent force of the water-fall 
could be employed. He was a business man. 
I see before me to-night a congregation of 
several hundred. Some are here who are old — 
I know it by your walk as you come down the 
aisle. You are not as erect as you once were; 

22 



WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 23 

your step is not so elastic; your hair is gray. 
Now is the winter of your life. In your locks 
is the silver of time's snow-flakes. Beautiful 
old age! Some are here in middle-age. Upon 
your stalwart shoulders rest the burdens of 
active life. Manufacturers, laborers, doctors, 
lawyers, merchants, commercial travelers, 
men of business, strong, energetic, and en- 
thusiastic. Noble middle-age! Many more 
are here who are young. Bright eyes, hopeful 
faces, buoyant step, quick hands, merry 
hearts. Beyond you bends the sky of the 
future, with no break in the blue, save where 
in the distance, "golden clouds crown emerald 
mountains." Beautiful youth! 

But I am not thinking of the dignity of old 
age, the activity of maturity, or the promise 
of adolescence. Like the third man at Niag- 
ara, I am wondering how much of latent possi- 
bility there is in this audience, how much 
unused power, how much undeveloped talent. 
I am thinking of the wrongs that might be re- 
dressed, the skies that might be brightened, 
the lives that might be redeemed, if every 
soul in this house would only open its entrance- 
door to the Holy Ghost, the Holy Guest, the 



24 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

mighty Savior. 

I am appalled by the magnitude of the task 
I have undertaken — to prove to you that you 
should be Christians, to give you reasonable 
arguments, sufficiently plain and forceful to 
induce you to yield your intellects, affections, 
and wills to God. I am more and more every 
day sensible of the utter insufficiency of human 
power to convert a soul, or even to convince 
it to the point of obedience to divine com- 
mands. It would be useless to argue to a 
child that the atmosphere in a room is full of 
floating dust. He will not believe it until he 
has seen it for himself. But just puncture the 
curtain, and let a ray of sunlight in, and in a 
moment it is revealed to him that the air is 
full of hitherto invisible, but none the less real, 
atoms of dust. So, if only the infinite Spirit 
of Light will shine down into your heart, you 
will see what I alone cannot reveal. It will 
be impossible for you to argue satisfactorily to 
an inexperienced traveler his need of a guide 
in the White Mountains. The way seems so 
plain, the air so clear, the sky so cloudless; 
but let him undertake a journey; then let the 
storm come, and the sky be darkened, and the 



WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 25 

thunders roll, and the lightnings flash; or let 
the snow-storm envelop him in an impene- 
trable twilight, and he understands what he 
could not appreciate before. If only the om- 
nipotent Christ will speak to you to-night, He 
will discover to you your need of a guide in 
life, in such a manner as no other can. I 
wish I knew that you who are not Christians, 
would become Christians as soon as you are 
satisfied that it is right, persuaded that it is 
reasonable, and convinced that it is no less 
an inestimable privilege, than a sacred duty. 

I would that He whose gospel I preach 
might stand here in visible form to-night. 

He would not have to speak a word. An- 
tony only needed to uncover the corpse of 
Caesar and let the populace see the murder- 
ous dagger-thrusts, to enrage the city against 
Brutus. Caesar's wounds were eloquent. 

So, I think, the stripes on those shoulders 
lashed for you, the nail-prints in those hands 
and feet pierced for you, that open side, lac- 
erated for you, those tender eyes, those benig- 
nant lips, would induce you to say: "I will fol- 
low Thee." If you only knew how much He 
loves your soul, how much it cost Him to 



3« COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

purchase your redemption, you would no 
longer hesitate to lay your hands upon the 
altar, and with grateful voice, cry out, "Lord 
Jesus, I am thine." If some tall and tender 
angel would only lift the veil that hides futur- 
ity from your view, that you could see the 
things He has prepared for you, it would not 
be necessary for me to reason with you to 
surrender your soul to Him. Or, if you could 
only hear the wailings of the lost, tormented 
day and night in the regions of despair with 
remorseful memories, you would no longer 
linger in the wild, "while God is waiting to 
receive His sinful child." 

But I will not appeal to your desire to gain 
Heaven, nor to your fear of hell, in showing 
you the reason why you should begin a Chris- 
tian life. There may be too much of that 
spirit of desire for reward and fear of punish- 
ment in the world already. While it is not 
advisable — indeed, not possible — wholly to 
divorce from our thought the future recom- 
pense of the good, or the retribution of the 
wicked, it is desirable that we should have in 
mind the more immediate inducements to 
love God. There are some that associate 



WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 27 

religion only with death and death-beds, coffins 
and funerals. There are some that purpose 
to be Christians some time, but they enter- 
tain a hope to be able to repent in time to die 
a decent death, merit a Christian burial, and 
go to Heaven, and be happy forever. They 
may do that, but I have always thought that 
it was a sinister motive that prompted such 
reformations, and that it was not altogether 
an honest thing to spend one's life in the pur- 
suit of wealth or fame, or pleasure, and then, 
when death draws near, to thrust into God's 
hands the torn and wasted threads of a useless 
character. Post-mortem religion is better than 
none at all, but how much more manly it is to 
spend the strength and beauty of life in God's 
service, and enter Heaven as a piece of finished 
workmanship, early begun, long continued, 
and well ended here, ready to adorn the palace 
of the King. 

If this world were all — if all of life lay this 
side the tomb, there are many reasons why 
religion should claim our time and talents. A 
man who had lived a pious life, instructed his 
friends to write upon his monument this epi- 
taph: 



28 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

"If there is another world, I am in bliss; 
If not, I made the very best of this." 

Very similar is this sentiment to that con- 
tained in the text, "Godliness is profitable unto 
all things, having promise of the life that now 
is." Godliness is profitable. This is a good 
reason why we should "exercise ourselves unto 
godliness. " Why does that mercahnt invest 
his capital, that mechanic years of time, that 
professional man untold pains and labor, each 
in his chosen vocation? Because it pays. 
Why am I a Christian? Because it pays. 

Every good thing has a right to exist. It is 
its own vindication. You have heard some 
one say, "The world owes me a living." I 
am not so sure of that. Dr. Johnson says, 
"The world does not owe house-room to any- 
body or anything that is of no value." At 
the very outset, Christianity was challenged 
with the inquiry: "What does this new Gospel 
mean?" The world has been asking of the 
church: "What reason has the religion of 
Jesus for being? What are its fruits?" I re- 
peat the query, What is Christianity for? If 
I urge you to yield to the claims and control 
of Christ, you are entitled to know what 
Christ can do for you. Why am I a Christian? 



WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 29 

I. First ; , for my own good. If there were 
but one mortal on earth, that one soul would 
find it profitable and expedient to put itself 
into an attitude of obedience to divine law. 
The human soul is under condemnation. To 
quarrel with this declaration is to controvert 
self-consciousness. The facts of sin and sin- 
fulness are among the most undeniable con- 
victions in all the range of consciousness. I 
know my tendencies to sin. My sins rise up 
before me mountain-high. They point their 
bony fingers to a coming judgment. My evil 
passions and appetites are sure to overcome 
me. "When I would do good, evil is ever 
present with me. The good I would do, that 
I do not, and the evil I would not, that I 
do." My life is full of necessities, but none 
so urgent as the demand for some relief from 
my own iniquitous tendencies. God offers me 
resisting strength. The history of others 
proves that he can impart to a soul grace and 
power to overcome. So he did to Joseph. 
So He did to the three youths of Babylon, and 
to Daniel. Many another has been enabled, 
in the presence of sin, when the wine flowed 
as joyfully, and women smiled as temptingly 



30 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

as in Belshazzar's banquet-room, to say no to 
the syren. God has helped his people in 
every age, to resist evil, by reinforcing and for- 
tifying the power of the inner man. This he 
will do for me, if I ask Him. 

My soul is cast down within me, and dis- 
quieted. I am "tossed about with many a con- 
flict, many a doubt." My mind is a battle- 
field, on which is waged a warfare fierce as 
Austerlitz, or Waterloo. My soul is a sea, 
stormy as was the Galilean lake when the dis- 
ciples "toiled in rowing against a contrary 
wind." I have heard of peace. Is there any 
such thing as peace for me? If there is, I want it. 
Is there any voice that can speak my tumul- 
tuous life to rest? The Book says there is. 
My friends say there is. I believe there is. 
"Come unto me, and I will give you rest." 
Thus speaks the tender Savior. If I can have 
respite from "fightings without and fears with- 
in," by coming to Him, why not come now? 

God helping me, I will. 

That was a beautiful salutation of the early 
Christians, "Peace be unto you." But it was 
only another form of that beatitude which the 
departing Savior pronounced upon his sorrow- 



WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 31 

ing disciples, "Peace I leave with you; my 
peace I give unto you." When Dr. Addison 
was dying, he sent for the young but wicked 
Lord Warwick to come to him. The young 
man entered his room. 

"Why did you send for me? Have you aay- 
thing to say to me?" 

The dying man replied: "I only wanted you 
to see in how great peace a Christian can die." 

Yes, Christians die in peace, but it is be- 
cause they live in peace — peace with God, 
peace with men. 

I am young. My pulses thrill with a strange 
delight. My steps are buoyant with the 
vitality of young manhood. Like all other 
young people, my dream is of pleasure. More 
than treasure, more than fame, more than 
study, more than health, more than honor; 
young people set their desire upon pleasure. 
Where is pleasure; the best, and the most 
enduring? If there is a source of joy and hap- 
piness, to which I can go and drink, as from a 
fountain, and be satisfied, show me the way, 
and I will seek it. There is. The Book says 
so. My friends say so. The purest, noblest, 
truest souls of all the ages say so. "In Thy 



32 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

presence is fullness of joy, and at thy right 
hand are pleasures forevermore. All Thy 
ways are ways of pleasantness, and all Thy 
paths are peace." There is no joy worth ex- 
periencing, no pleasure worth possessing, no 
rapture worth knowing that I am deprived of 
by becoming a Christian. Indeed, there are 
a thousand experiences of unspeakable delight 
which come to me, and alike to all the follow- 
ers of the Christ. 

Then, I am anxious to succeed in life. 
Whatever success may mean, I presume it 
is fair to say. that it includes the idea of 
pre-eminence in some especial line of endeavor. 

Whatever line of activity promises success, 
that line I will pursue. Then, I must become 
a Christian. Christianity produces such a 
habitude of mind, state of heart, quality of 
character, and condition of spirit as is con- 
ducive to success in any honorable line. What 
better mottoes, rules of conduct, laws of action 
in any business or profession can there be than 
these: "Fervent in business, diligent in spirit, 
serving the Lord. The just man walketh in 
his integrity. Ye shall not steal, neither deal 
falsely, neither lie to one another. Be not 



WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 33 

slothful." There is success and success. The 
question is, How may I gain permanent suc- 
cess? Only by doing what I do, as in the 
presence of the Lord. 

II. I am a Christian for the good of others. 
"None of us liveth unto himself." In a thous- 
and ways, in our associations with those about 
us, our lives influence the character and des- 
tiny of others. 

"The smallest bark on life's tumultuous Ocean 

Will leave behind a track forevermore: 
The lightest wave of influence, set in motion, 

Extends and widens to the eternal shore. 
We should be wary, then, who go before 

A myriad yet to be, and we should take 
Our bearing carefully where breakers roar 

And fearful tempests gather: One mistake 
May wreck unnumbered barks that follow in our wake." 

A beautiful principle is the mainspring of 
Christian self-denial and service. "We are not 
our own, we are bought with a price." Who 
bought us? The Sufferer of Calvary. He who 
bought by his passion, and by his death 
gives us to the world to live again the life He 
lived in Judea nineteen hundred years ago. 
What kind of a life was that? It is all summed 
up in these words, "He pleased not himself." 
He came not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister; not to be served, but to serve others. 



34 COUNSEL AND COMFORT, 

This is the life that we must duplicate. This 
is the life, high and heavenly, which we must 
reflect, as a mountain lakelet reflects upon its 
bosom the star that shines above it in the sky. 

Jesus said: "Ye are the light of the world." 
What is light for? It shines for others. He 
said, "Ye are the salt of the earth." What 
is salt for? Not to keep itself, but to preserve 
other things from purification. Why do the 
flowers bloom? That they may make glad 
the hearts of others. Why do the clouds cur- 
tain the sky in summer? That they may shel- 
ter others from the scorching rays of the sun, 
and fructify the fields with gracious showers 
of rain. Nothing in nature, except selfish man 
alone, exists for itself. Some people live for 
themselves, and for themselves only. When 
urged to abstain from the use of wine at a 
public feast, out of regard for the welfare of a 
young man who sat beside him, whose father 
died a drunkard, a gentleman said, "I will 
not abstain. Who is he, that I should deny 
myself pleasure for his sake? He is nothing 
to me." The idea of Christianity is to do 
good and be good for the sake of others. 

What do you live for? 



WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 35 



" I live for those who love me, 

Whose hearts are kind and true; 
For the Heaven that smiles above me, 

And awaits my spirit too: 
For all human ties that bind me, 

For the task that God assigned me, 
For the bright hopes left behind me, 

And the good that I can do. 
I live to learn their story, 

Who've suffered for my sake; 
To emulate their glory, 

And follow in their wake, 
Bards patriots, martyrs, sages, 

The noble of all ages, 
Whose deeds crown history's pages, 

And time's great volumne make. 
I like to hold communion 

With all that is divine; 
To feel there is a union 

'Twixt nature's heart and mine; 
To profit by affliction. 

Reap truths from fields of fiction, 
Grow wiser from conviction 

And fulfill each grand design. 
I live to hail that season, 

By gifted minds foretold, 
When men shall live by reason, 

And not alone by gold; 
When man to man united, 

And every wrong thing righted, 
The whole world shall be lighted 

As Eden was of old. 
I live for those who love me, 

For those those who know me true; 
For the heaven that smiles above me, 

Aud awaits my spirit too: 
For the cause that lacks assistance. 

For the wrong that needs resistance, 
For the future in the distance, 

And the good that I can do." 

III. I am a Christain for God's glory. I 
believe in this much of the Calvinist cate- 
chism: "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and 



36 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

enjoy him forever." "Herein is my father 
glorified, that ye bear much fruit. I have chosen 
you, that you should bring forth fruit." God's 
delight is in saving sinners. He is represented 
as a Shepherd, seeking the sheep that have 
wandered away from the fold. Happy are 
we, like lost sheep, when the Great Shepherd 
has found us. Happy? The Great Shep- 
herd is happier than we! Significant idea is 
this, that we can add to the glory of God him- 
self, by accepting his overtures of mercy and 
becoming the agents of His Gospel in the sal- 
vation of other souls. 

The very noblest and highest incentive to 
Christian effort is that we may afford pleasure 
to our Creator, by doing the work He has 
given us to do. The Savior said, "There is 
joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth." 
Joy in heaven! Joy among the angels and 
archangels; joy among the enthroned and 
imparadised, who were once God's witnesses 
on earth; joy among the families that gather 
on the flowery hills, and under the branches of 
the trees that grow beside the unending River 
of Life; but joy that fathoms greater depths, 
and rises to loftier heights, in the heart of 



WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 3? 

Him, who for this joy of seeing sinners saved 
"endured the cross, despised the shame, and 
is now set down on the right hand of the 
majesty on high." 



III. 

WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 

" Why will ye die?" — Jer. xiii. 2J. 

INHERE is a story of a vessel's crew in a 
far-off Northern latitude, who sighted a 
ship in the dim light of an Arctic morn- 
ing, apparently three or four miles away. They 
approached the strange vessel, and hailed her 
to know her name and destination. No reply 
was heard. The glass showed forms upon her 
decks; a banner waved from her flag-staff. 
Again they hailed her; no answer still. Curious 
to know why they were not recognized, a boat 
put through the icy waters, and several men 
boarded the ship. Then they understood the 
strange behavior of the stranger crew. The 
sailors on the vessel were dead — stiff, stark 
dead — frozen like statues at their stations. 
They entered the cabin, and found the cap- 
tain and mate seated at the table, bent above 
the log-book, motionless and dead. Strange 

38 



WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 39 

circumstances were these, but no stranger 
than facts around us every day. The world is 
full of active, moving forms of those who, as 
regards the inner life, are as dead as the 
ghostly ice-corpses of the Arctic ship. What 
a graveyard this world would be, if all the 
dead were buried — as, indeed, what a crowded, 
overflowing world the earth would be were 
all the truly living still in bodily form among 
us. 

What meant the inspired penman when he 
wrote, "Awake, thou that sleepest, arise from 
the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." 
What mean the Holy Scriptures, where it 
is declared, "Christ came to bring life and 
immortality to light?" What meant the proc- 
lamations of Christ himself, when he said: 
"I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am 
the resurrection and the life. The words 
which I speak unto you, they are spirit, and 
they are life. I am come that ye might have 
life, and that ye might have it more abund- 
antly?" What mean these? Simply this: 
That that part of our existence which we 
spend on earth is not all of life. All, did I 
say? It is only an infinitesimal fraction of 



40 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

the life for which we were created, the life 
we may possess. That man who bounds life 
by the grave is as short-sighted as an ox in 
the pasture, to which all the world seems 
only a clover-field; or, as the child, who 
thinks that the first touches on the ivory keys, 
the first fingering of the harp-strings, the first 
notes of the violin, the first strains of the 
flute, in the orchestra, as the players tune 
their instruments, make up the whole chorus. 
O brother mine, O sister, if you are here this 
morning who have thought that the few fleet- 
ing years that we spend below are all of life, 
to you I say, our little time on earth 
bears a smaller relation to the great space of 
life God's plan marks out for us, than the 
width of this room bears to the flight of a 
bird, which might be fancied to start on a 
journey from pole to pole, and on its winged 
pilgrimage to soar in at yonder window, and 
out of that one on the South. To one who 
wills. 

"This life of mortal breath 

Is but the suburb of the life elysian 
Whose portals we call death." 

Beyond this sphere of time lie endless 



WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 41 

cycles of centuries, like a shoreless sea, like 
a boundless plain. Foolish is the ocean 
mariner who anchors before he leaves the 
bay. Foolish, the pilgrim who thinks his 
journey ended ere it is begun. 

I do not mean to teach the doctrine of con- 
ditional immortality, or possible annihilation, 
when I say that the only soul that has eternal 
life is the soul in which abides faith in Christ; 
that the soul that has not faith in Christ is 
dead. I do not mean the idea of death which 
attaches to cessation of being, but death in 
another sense — spiritual death. What that 
death is I do not know. I only know that the 
sentence of that death is entered against every 
soul that sins. It is in accord with eternal 
justice. It is the fiat of stern law. The 
Judge could not do otherwise. Not to gratify 
His anger, but that law may be vindicated, 
and that government may not be abrogated, 
He has decreed that "the soul that sinneth, 
it shall die." 

But one comes with power and authority to 
offer to guilty sinners, life, conditionally. He 
says: "I am the bread of life. Whoso drink- 
eth of the water that I shall give him (the 



43 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

Water of Life) shall never thirst. " In explana- 
tion of this idea of spiritual life, Paul says, 
"To be carnally minded is death, but to be 
spiritually minded is life and peace." The 
purpose of Christ's coming, and of his written 
biography is clearly stated thus: "These are 
written that ye might believe that Jesus Christ 
is the Son of God, and, believing, that ye 
might have life through His name." 

I have spoken thus long that I might found 
a substantial basis for reasoning from the 
morning text, that he who chooses to be a 
Christian, chooses to have life, and that he 
who neglects to choose to be a Christian, or 
who positively chooses not to be a Christian, 
chooses spiritual death. The Christian life is 
the only complete life, in that it takes up 
existence ending here, and continues it in the 
Great Beyond. Said Moses to the people of 
Israel, "I call Heaven to record against you, 
that I have this day set before you life and 
death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose 
life." 

I purpose to discuss this morning some rea- 
sons offered by persons, by way of excuse, for 
not becoming Christians. That I might speak 



WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 43 

fairly and intelligently, I consulted, in the 
preparation of this sermon, many men who 
candidly admit that they are not Christians, 
and asked them their reasons for not espous- 
ing the Christian religion. With equal can- 
dor, some of them gave me their reasons for 
withholding the exercise of faith in Christ; 
among them I have selected several which I 
will name presently, and attempt to answer, 
aiming to show their insufficiency, as it appears 
to me. Said one to whom I spoke: "I do not be- 
long to the church but I pray regularly, read the 
Bible, and trust in Christ as my Savior " 
There may be others who occupy a like posi- 
tion. To such I am not speaking. To such 
I do not address this sermon. In the church, 
or out of the church, God bless you, brother. 
You are my brother; you are God's son; you 
are Christ's disciple — a secret disciple, to be 
sure, but when Jesus was on earth, He had 
some friends who followed Him secretly, or 
"from afar off." 

Nicodemus was one, the same that came to 
Jesus by night; and note that whenever he 
is spoken of, he is mentioned as "the same 
that came to Jesus by night." He did not 



44 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

see his way to acknowledge openly his rela- 
tion to Christ, but he believed in Him, and 
came to Him for instruction. There was 
another secret disciple — a judge — Joseph of 
Arimathea. He was known as a friend of the 
Nazarene only by his gift of a grave. If you 
love Christ, and have his grace in your soul, 
you have His life; you are not dead spiritu- 
ally, and, therefore, this question, "Why will 
ye die?" is not pertinent to you. At another 
time, if God allows me, I will speak with 
particular reference to you, and urge upon 
you a step you have not yet taken, enjoined 
upon you by Christian duty; but I will not 
this morning. 

Another said: "It is not to your interest to 
urge that inquiry, for if I should become a 
Christian, I would certainly find my home in 
another church than yours. I do not like 
your church. I like better the doctrines and 

polity of the church. I attend your 

services, because I like you and the people, 
but I would go to another denomination if I 
became a Chfistian. ,, To which I answer: 
That makes no difference in the urgency with 
which I press the inquiry. I love you, and 



WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 45 

your presence here inspires me with hope 
and courage. But if, by becoming a Chris- 
tian, you would be separated from this congre- 
gation, I will bid you Godspeed, and bless- 
ings attend you; and to whatever church you 
go, you bear my heartiest greetings. The 
question is not "Why are you not a Metho- 
dist, or a Presbyterian, or a Baptist, or an 
Episcopalian?" but "Why are you not a 
Christian?" — in that broad and extended mean- 
ing of the term, which takes in all true believ- 
ers of whatever name, under whatever ecclesi- 
astical government, or wherever found. In 
the times of old, when gallant knights went 
out to battle with sword and armor, they were 
accustomed to have mottoes on their shields. 
In the Christian warfare, we are required to 
do battle. Let our motto be no such an in- 
scription, as "For my Church," but rather, 
"For Christ, and for souls." In all my in- 
quiries pertaining to this subject, I have 
been reminded of a story related of the Duke 
of Ferrera, Alfonso de Este, who at one 
time proposed, in a familiar way, the ques- 
tion, "In what are most men engaged?" 
One said the most were shoemakers; an- 



46 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

other, tailors; and a third, pettifoggers. 
Gonelle, the duke's buffoon, said there were 
more physicians than any other class of men. 
He sought to prove it in this wise: wrap- 
ping a white cloth about his face, he walked 
down the street. Almost every one who 
knew him greeted him with the question, 
"What is the matter?" to which he answered 
dolefully, "Toothache, toothache; bad case." 
And there was not one of those who met him, 
and inquired his ailment, but that offered him 
some remedy, warranted to cure. Gonelle 
wrote down their names and nostrums, and in 
a few hours' time returned to his friends, 
prepared to prove conclusively that there 
were more physicans in that city than members 
of any other profession. Now, I have not been 
looking for that class of men, or possibly I 
might have found them. But in my inter- 
course with numerous persons, during the 
preparation of this sermon, I was surprised 
to find how large a number of people are en- 
gaged in manufacturing. More numerous 
than physicians, or lawyers, or cobblers, or 
mechanics, are manufacturers — of excuses. 
By this I mean no disrespect to any; nor 



WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 47 

would I impugn the motive of any man in 
attempting to justify himself for failing to 
accept the tenets of Christianity. I only call 
your attention to the marvelous readiness of 
people generally to excuse themselves. Ex- 
cuses are so easily made. "The archer shot 
ill because his bow was bent, or the cord was 
twisted, or the arrow crooked. The work- 
man did an uncomely job because his tools 
were dull. The doctor did not cure because 
he was not called sooner." A lady who had 
not been to church for a year, when her pastor 
asked her the cause of her absence, replied: 
"Well, we haven't good enough clothes; then, 
the children are small, and can't be left alone; 
and I have had the rheumatism; and the 
horses work so hard during the week, they 
aren't able to be driven on Sunday; besides 
they are not shod; and the roads are bad, 
and its a long distance, and we can't walk, 
because it's up-hill all the way there, and all 
the way back — that's the reason we stay at 
home." 

Her wants were innumerable; but there was 
one want she did not name, which overshad- 
owed all the rest — she wanted the will to go 



48 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

to church. I do not say this is the reason 
many do not become Christians. There may 
be obstacles between you and the Christian 
life that I do not know. If so, if you have a 
sufficient excuse, keep it — yea, write it out, 
inscribe it on marble, cast it in bronze, that it 
may never molder. Keep it — cherish it. It 
may be your only escape from condemnation. 
When you come to the hour of death, clasp it 
to your heart; take it with you to the grave. 
When the trump of God sounds, convey it to 
the throne, and show it to the Judge. If it 
will be sufficient there, it is sufficient here. 

I. It is a fact well known, because often 
repeated by many as a reason for holding 
themselves aloof from the cause of Christ, 
that there are those who do not confess the 
Savior because they do not believe the entirety 
of the Bible. "Why are you not a Chris- 
tian?" "Because I cannot accept the Gene- 
setical account of the* creation. I cannot 
believe the story of the overthrow of the walls 
of Jericho at the sound of the rams' horns. I 
cannot believe that Samson carried off the 
gates of Gaza, or that he pulled down the 
temple pillars. I do not believe that the 



WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 40 

prophet's axe floated on the water. I 
cannot believe that Jonah was swallowed by 
a whale." To these objections I answer: It 
does not concern this question whether or not 
these things are true. It does not matter so 
far as regards your present happiness, or your 
eternal destiny, where Cain got his wife, or 
whether Noah built an ark, or what was the 
confusion of tongues at Babel. Why stum- 
ble over these things? Why allow such triv- 
ial, puerile questions and quibblings to keep 
you from your inheritance? The great ques- 
tions are, Is there a God — a personal God; a 
God who thinks, and thinks of you? Is there 
a God who feels for, sympathizes with, and 
compassionates, you in your sorrow? Is there 
a God who wills, and wills that you may be 
saved? If there is such a God, you need 
Him. Why not seek Him? Another great 
question is, Is man immortal? "If a man die, 
shall he live again?" Do we perish like the 
grass of the field? If man is immortal — if he 
has a soul indestructible and eternal — it be- 
hooves you to cultivate your soul, foster its 
nature, and give it the benefit of every help 
the universe affords. Another problem 



50 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

freighted with awful significance is, Does 
Christ save men? Will He save us from sin, 
and from its consequences? If Christ does 
save, if He will save, you want Him for your 
Savior. Now, why do you spend your time 
and toil in such non-essential speculations as 
I mentioned a moment ago, when the inex- 
pressibly greater queries concerning God, 
immortality, and salvation appeal for answer? 
II. Another says, "I do not care to adopt 
a system of belief and code of practice which 
has among its adherents so many who are 
notoriously unrighteous. There is A, who 
doesn't pay his debts. There is B, who 
talks like an angel, yet in his family he 
is as cruel as the grave. There is C, who 
prays often and long, but never was known 
to contribute a penny to feed the hungry, 
clothe the naked, or relieve the poor. There 
is X, who shouts sometimes, and cries 
Amen! aloud, and yet he failed in business, 
and compromised with his creditors for fifty 
cents on the dollar. There is Y, who 
teaches a class in Sunday School, and yet 
cannot refrain from speaking evil of her neigh- 
bors. There is Z, who is an officer in the 



WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 51 

church, a deacon, a steward, yet when he gets 
mad he swears like a pirate." Do you not 
hear this every day? And the worst feature 
of the case is that in many instances the 
charge cannot be wholly refuted. I will not 
attempt to justify these moral delinquencies. 
I might, if I had time, and if I had the inclina- 
tion, show you that A has tried to pay his 
obligations, and failed because he was not as 
prosperous in business as you. I might be 
able to show you that B has an inherited 
predisposition to sternness, or that he has the 
dyspepsia, or liver disease, which affects his 
temper — and you know that the relation be- 
tween the body and the mind is intimate as it 
is mysterious. I might show you that he has 
prayed over his infirmities, and agonized, and 
wept, and yet has not been able to conquer 
his inclinations. I might demonstrate to 
you that C does not contribute to charity, 
because he cannot spare from his meager 
means so much as a dollar. I might paint 
his picture, as he sits down at his scanty table 
and rises up hungry. I might prove to you 
that X failed honestly, as many do, and that, 
in paying fifty cents on the dollar, he invited 



52 COUNSEL AND COMFORT, 

poverty and destitution to his own home. If 
we could look into the secrets of hearts, we 
might find that Y and Z have tried again 
and again to conquer their evil tendencies, the 
one to slander, and the other to profanity, 
but that with all their endeavors, they have 
not been able to overcome entirely the nat- 
ural dispositions of their minds. But I will 
not. I will admit that all these charges are 
true, and that they are without excuse. I 
will admit that these you have particularized 
are wilfully and maliciously mean; but even if 
this is true, there is every reason why you 
should all be Christians, and strive by the con- 
sistency of your life to redeem a worthy cause 
from disgrace. I might argue that the same 
reasons you give for not becoming a Chris- 
tian, are equally competent to lead you to 
shun the society of the world, for 
are there not many, very many, outside 
of the church, who are as bad, or worse, than 
these you have named within the church? 
After all, the best answer to the excuse of 
those who stumble over the misconduct of 
others, is in the language of the Savior to 
Peter, when that impulsive disciple was con- 



WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 53 

cerned for the conduct of a comrade, "What 
is that to thee? Follow thou me." 

III. Another says, "I am not a Christian, 
because I have not time to think of such 
things. My time is occupied with more im- 
portant matters. After a while I may think 
about religion, but not now. " Ah I see that you 
are suffering from a confused idea of values. 
Not the Indian chief who bartered a thous- 
and acres of land for a looking-glass; not the 
child who chose a tinsel toy in preference to 
a legacy of bonds, is more confused in his 
idea of values than are you. What are the 
things of greatest value to us? Business suc- 
cess? Social preeminence? Pleasure of any 
kind? The acquirement of knowledge? No; 
none of these are of prime importance. 
Hear the injunction of the Master: "Seek ye 
first the Kingdom of God and His rightous- 
ness, and all these things shall be added unto 
you." I pray that none of us who are here 
may make the fatal error of underestimating 
the worth of the soul, and its interests, or of 
counting these subsidiary to temporal affairs. 
I see also that you are suffering from a con- 
fused idea of the right order of things. You 



54 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

say: "I will first give my attention to the 
affairs of business, and afterward turn to 
Christ and be saved." You should reverse 
that order. The woman who, in the panic of 
a fire, carried a feather pillow down stairs 
and laid it carefully in the yard, and after- 
ward returned to rescue her baby, and could 
only save it by throwing it from the window, 
had a confused idea of the order of action. 
The soldiers who, in the midst of a battle, 
forgot duty, and sought safety in flight, were 
laboring under the same confusion. Their 
first concern should have been for the safety 
of the flag, and not for their own. We can 
understand such actions, for the panic of a 
fire and the excitement of a battle some- 
times serve to unsettle reason for a time. But 
is it not strange that so many men deliber- 
ately and willfully pay attention first to mat- 
ters which they admit are not of first import? 
Is not eternity of greater worth than time? 
Is not the soul of larger value than the 
body? 

IV. One, of whom I asked the ques- 
tion (he was in prison), "Will you not 
accept Christ?" said: "I am too wicked. These 



WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 55 

hands are stained with blood. My heart is 
full of sin. My hair has grown gray serving 
Satan." It may be there are others here, the 
memory of whose transgressions seems a bar- 
rier to your progress in the line of Christian 
living. To you I can say no more encoura- 
ging, no more hopeful, no more inviting words 
than the words of the Holy Book itself: "Let 
the wicked man forsake his way, and the 
unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him 
return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy 
upon him; and to our God, for He will abun- 
dantly pardon. Though your sin be as scarlet, 
they shall be as white as snow; and though 
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just 
to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from 
all unrighteousness. ,, 

Hear the testimony of St. Paul: "This is a 
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, 
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save 
sinners, of whom I am chief. For this cause 
I obtained mercy, that in me, first, Jesus 
Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for 
a pattern to them which should hereafter 
believe on Him to life everlasting." 



56 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

Ah! my brother unsaved; you have heaped 
up no mountain of guilt, but that the surges 
of the infinite sea of love can submerge it. 
My prayer is, and let your prayer be: "Ye 
tides of grace divine, roll up and on, till, in 
your own overwhelming flood, you bury all 
our sin uncounted fathoms deep! Sweep over 
us, O fountains of salvation, and cleanse us in 
the baptism of that blood that speaketh bet- 
ter things than the blood of Abel! Now, 
even now, let the heavenly deluge come!" 



IV. 

HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 

"With the heart man believeth unto right- 
eousness, but with the mouth confession is 
made unto salvation" — Romans x. 10. 

THE question foremost in our minds tonight 
is the same expressed by Thomas, when 
the Master tried to comfort the hearts of 
his wondering scholars with those words upon 
which we delight to dwell, as upon the surpass- 
ing sweetness of some song that lingers in our 
memories long after the singer has ceased to 
sing: "Let not your heart be troubled; ye 
believe in God, believe also in Me. Whither 
I go ye know, and the way ye know." 
Thomas said: "We know not whither Thou 
goest; how, then, can we know the way?" 
This is our request to-night, What is the way? 
It is the same query which the Phillippian 
warden uttered when, ere yet the echo of the 
falling chains, and snapping bolts, and break- 
ing bars, and creaking walls had ceased, he 

57 



58 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

exclaimed to the two prisoners: "What must 
I do to be saved?" This is the problem of the 
world. This is the question of the soul. It is 
not difficult to solve. There are principles to 
observe, and laws to obey. True, these laws 
and principles may be intricate and unfathom- 
able, but we do not have to understand them; 
we have only to obey them. In all the range 
of Scripture, there is no plainer answer to the 
question, "How may I become a Christian?" 
than the language of the text, "With the 
heart man believeth unto rightousness, but 
with the mouth confession is made unto salva- 
tion." 

Let us study these words. This is a 
familiar text; but that it is well known does 
not signify that it is well understood. The 
fact is, we sometimes least understand the 
words we best remember. Think not that 
the meaning of this text has been exhausted, 
because it has been oft repeated. Turn not 
away from anything old for the reason that it 
is old. Old books, old pictures, old statues, 
old friends, old wine — these are precious be- 
cause they are old. The earth is old, but 
there is still silver in the pockets of her hills 



HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 59 

and gold in the generous lap of her moun- 
tains. The sun is old, but time plows no 
furrows in its blazing disc. This verse is old, 
but it has treasures yet sufficient to enrich un- 
numbered lives. A familiar text is like a coin 
that has been long in circulation. Its charac- 
ters become obscure. It frequently becomes 
necessary to examine critically a well-worn 
coin, in order to read its inscription. Let us 
put this verse under the glass of meditation, 
and pray the Holy Ghost, the Divine Illumina- 
tor, to grant us brighter light to aid us in our 
study. Texts, like coins, are not all alike 
valuable. They are of different denomina- 
tions. All may have come from the same 
authoritative source, but some are of more 
precious worth than others. This is a golden 
text. A pauper may look at a coin, may even 
handle it, and be a pauper still. A man may 
read this verse and analyze it, and yet be 
none the richer. Only those who possess it, 
who make it theirs, are enriched by it. I 
entertain a hope that we may all not only 
think upon these words and enter into their 
significance, but into their ownership as well. 
Coins have two sides. So have some texts. 



60 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

So has this text. On one side, read: "With 
the heart man believeth unto righteousness." 
On the other, read: "With the mouth con- 
fession is made unto salvation." There be 
many who think they have this coin. Are 
you one? Examine your coin. Is one side 
blank? Then you are deceived. Your coin 
is ungenuine. Heart-belief and mouth-confes- 
sion are co-ordinate. "What God hath joined 
together, let no man put asunder." 

To be a Christian is to possess faith, and 
exercise confession. What is faith? 

I. It is the assent of the mind to certain 
facts or propositions, involving certain princi- 
ples. These facts are not always within the 
range of sensuous apprehension. They may 
have been established by long experience. 
They may have been discovered by patient 
study. They may have been developed by ear- 
nest toil, or they may be based on testimony 
alone. They may be attended with difficul- 
ties, mysteries, apparent contradictions, but 
faith affirms that the preponderance of evi- 
dence requires that they be received as true. 
For instance, our faith in friendship has been 
established by experience. The fact that we 



HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 61 

have had friends, tried, tested, proven friends 
— friends in need, and friends indeed — argues 
to us the certainty of the principle of friend- 
ship. This fact is within the range of sensu- 
ous observation. We have seen our friends; 
we have felt the silent pressure of their hands. 
We have looked into their faces, and beheld 
in their love-lit eyes the sign of sympathy. We 
have marked their falling tear-drops on the 
grave of our buried hopes; hence, we believe 
in friendship. Our faith in certain scientific 
facts Is founded more on testimony than on 
our own observation. We believe in the 
earth's dual motion, but this is not itself a 
fact of personal observation to most of us. 
Neither is it a theory formulated by our own 
calculation; but we accept it as truth, by the 
dicta of scientific men whom we may not know, 
and may never have seen. Our faith in most 
of the principles known to astronomy is based 
on the statements of those who are better 
informed than we, whose conclusions have 
been reached by earnest toil. It is a mere 
statement that in one second of time, in one 
swaying of the pendulum of yonder clock, a 
ray of light travels 192,000 miles — a mere 



62 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

statement. But we believe it, because we 
have faith in the conclusions of Herschel, and 
Lockyer, and Proctor, and Mitchel. Our 
faith in many of the doctrines of the Bible is 
supported by testimony alone; that is to say, 
left to itself, the reason could never have 
originally discovered, and cannot now fully 
comprehend them. In this respect the Bible 
is not unlike nature. 

"Never a daisy grows, but a mystery guideth the growing. 
Never a river flows, but a mystery scepters its flowing." 

Nevertheless, this is true. While there is 
nothing, either in nature or religion, that is 
not in some respects above reason, there is 
nothing in either that is not in some respects 
within the scope of reason. "Now, we know 
in part," only in part, but, thank God, we do 
know in part. 

The same laws of thought, which require us 
to accept, and by which we do accept, scien- 
tific statements on faith, require the assent of 
our minds to certain religious dogmas. By 
the measure of orthodox Christianity, he has 
fulfilled this requirement, who has come to 
the honest acknowledgment, "I believe in 
God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven 



HOJV MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 63 

and earth, and in His only Son, Jesus Christ our 
Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, 
born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under 
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; 
the third day He rose again, and ascended in- 
to heaven, from whence he shall come to judge 
the quick and the dead. I believe in the 
Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic church, the 
communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, 
the resurrection of the body, and life everlast- 
ing. Amen." 

This is the Apostles' Creed. This is our 
creed. But it is too long for most of us to 
remember. Our minds are full of figures — 
dry, dull figures, stock reports, debits and 
credits, profits and losses, receipts and expen- 
ditures, assets and liabilities, partisan politics, 
and tariff-bills. Is there not some shorter 
creed, some single statement of a doctrine, 
which, if we embrace, we embrace all; in which, 
if we believe, we believe in all? Inseparable 
from the text, which I have quoted, is the 
verse which precedes it: "If thou shalt confess 
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt 
believe in thine heart that God hath raised 
Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." 



64 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

"I believe in my heart that God hath raised 
the Lord Jesus from the dead." There it is. 
That is all. 

You have heard of Homer's "Iliad," written 
in characters so small that the whole manu- 
script could be inclosed in a nut-shell. Here 
is the gospel in a nut-shell — multum in parvo 
— "many in few." Here is a perfect body of 
divinity in a small compass. Here is one 
of those verses which Luther declared are 
"little Bibles." 

That a man has reached the summit of the 
Matterhorn — the summit, lofty, snow-crested, 
and sun-crowned — is sufficient evidence that 
he has climbed up its slopes. He has mas- 
tered all the mountain. "I believe in my heart 
that God hath raised the Lord Jesus from the 
dead." No man ever planted his feet on that 
doctrine, who had not already mounted up the 
slopes that lead to it, the slopes that are 
crowned by it, and are incomplete without it. 
Belief in the resurrection of Jesus is belief in 
every other doctrine that is essential to the 
Christian faith. A gentleman once asked to 
see a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation. 
The librarian pointed him to a picture on the 



HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 65 

wall — a picture of the immortal Lincoln. 
Approaching it, and studying it minutely, the 
gentleman perceived that it was a curious 
specimen of the penman's art, by which the 
document had been so written as to outline 
the seamed, sad features of its author. He 
could not study that face long, without read- 
ing all the proclamation which made its 
signer's name luminous with the glory of a 
deed that cannot die, and hallowed by the 
adoration of the good and true of every age. 
Come with me across the ocean, and the 
mountains, and the sea. Stand with me in 
the purple shadows of a Judean garden, on the 
first Easter morning of the ages. The seal 
of a rocky tomb is broken. Angels have 
rolled away the stone from the door of the 
sepulcher, and lo! the Crucified Carpenter 
walks out from the darkness, with victory in 
His mildly-beaming eyes, and triumph in His 
hands for you and me forever. Behold the 
dead but risen Savior! Behold the defeated 
but triumphant Christ! Now look into that 
face, if its immaculate radiance and transpar- 
ent purity do not blind your vision, and read 
in its suppressed power the story of creation's 



66 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

beginning; read in its ineffable beauty the 
story of the divine conception; read in its 
sorrow the story of the Bethlehem manger; 
read in its sadness the story of the Judgment 
Hall; read in its pity the agony of that fateful 
afternoon on Golgotha; read in its love the 
forgiveness of your sins, and in His body behold 
the promise and prophecy of your resurrec- 
tion. Tell me, as you look upon Him, if in 
Him all truths do not center, all prophecies 
converge, all doctrines meet. "I believe that 
God hath raised from the dead the Lord 
Jesus." Is that all? Is not that enough? 
No; not all. Not enough. "Believest thou 
in thy heart that God hath raised the Lord 
Jesus from the dead?" 

Religious faith is not alone an act of the 
mind, but a quality of the heart. Intellectual 
belief is a theory, a thesis, a dogma, or a 
system of dogmas. Heart-belief is a spiritual 
power, a personal presence, a governing genius 
of life, a real comforter of sorrow, an active 
quickener to every noble work. Intellectual 
faith is the seed. Heart faith is that same 
seed — growing, budding, blooming, fruit-bear- 
ing, and its fruit is righteousness. There is 



HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 67 

the same difference between belief about 
Christ and faith in Christ, that there is be- 
tween a book on botany, with Latin names 
and scientific terms, and a garden rare with 
the perfume of blossoms that rises like incense 
from the altars of the angels. It is our faith 
in Christ, by which we are justified, and not 
our belief about Christ. 

Some minds want to analyze Christ, dissect 
his character, and write down opinions con- 
cerning Him on a sheet of paper they can carry 
around in their vest pockets. Ask such a one: 
"Have you Christ ?" and he produces and 
reads a census of dogmas on a page about five 
by seven inches. Is that your religion? That 
religion is worth nothing. That religion has 
crucified the Savior, and buried Him beneath 
uncounted volumes of theology — dry, hard, 
heavy theology. A servant girl came into the 
presence of an examining committee, applying 
for entrance to the church. She was unable 
to answer the questions asked her. She knew 
little theology. She was ignorant of the canons 
of the church, and entirely innocent of any 
logical understanding of the doctrines, assent 
to which was necessary for admittance to 



68 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

membership. Discouraged with her failure, 
and ashamed of her ignorance, baffled and 
confused, she turned to go, but stopped at 
the door, and looking back, said tearfully: 
"Oh, sirs! I don't know much about theology, 
I don't know much about anything but dusting 
and sweeping; but I do know this: I 
love Jesus, and I would die for Him, if He 
wanted me to/ 7 What would Christ have 
said to such an one? Would he not have 
taken her by the hand, identified Himself 
with her by a touch, and pronounced a beati- 
tude upon her faith? 

The great question is not, "Where is your 
creed?" but "Where is your experience?" Do 
you love? Do you pray? Do you yearn for 
a closer acquaintance with God? Do you strive 
after holiness? Do you "weep o'er the erring 
one? Do you lift up the fallen?" Then you 
are a Christian. What shall I do to be saved? 
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." That is 
all. But that is much more than you think it 
may be. " Lord" means " Master. " And when- 
ever, or however, or wherever, a man makes 
Jesus the Master of his life, there is born 
within him the divine life. "Christ in you." 



HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 09 

Have you an experience like that? Then you 
know what Paul meant, when he wrote, "I 
am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, 
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life 
I now live, I live by faith on the Son of God." 
Is Christ in you the hope of glory? Then you 
can say, like Thomas, "My Lord, and my 
God. ,, You can say, like Mary, "Rabboni, my 
Master." Then He is your Companion, your 
Partner, your Helper, your Friend, your Hope 
on earth, and He will be your Joy in Heaven. 
I would that your prayer might be to-night, 

"A guilty, weak and helpless worm, 
On thy kind arms, I fall, 
Be thou my strength and righteousness 
My Jesus, and My all." 

II. Now look at the other side of the text. 
"With the mouth confession is made unto sal- 
vation. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth 
the Lord Jesus." Deceive not yourselves into 
the vain belief that to live justly, deal fairly, 
and abstain from any open offense is to con- 
fess Christ. A man may do all that, and yet 
not confess Christ at all. A man may do all 
that, and be only a respectable pagan. While 
it is true that mouth-confession without con- 
sistent conduct is like a coin which bears a 



70 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

good inscription, but has a bad ring, it is like- 
wise true that a virtuous character without 
verbal confession is like a coin that has the 
right ring, but has no inscription, so that it is 
a matter undetermined, and indeterminate to 
what kingdom it belongs, whether to Caesar 
or to God. 

Mary's testimony to the disciples was, "The 
Lord is risen indeed." Such was one saluta- 
tion of the early Christians. Such has been 
the testimony of the church in every age since 
then, "The Lord is risen indeed." Such is 
the testimony of the confessing Christian, 
"The Lord is risen" — crucified by my sins, but 
risen in the once stony sepulcher of my heart. 
It is this testimony that has spread the Gospel 
over the continents and islands of the sea. It 
is this testimony before which the altars of 
Buddhism are deserted. It is this testimony 
before which the Crescent pales, and the mina- 
rets and pagodas of heathendom and the ram- 
parts of atheism fall. John, the Revelator 
saw the throng of ransomed spirits before the 
throne, "who had overcome by the word of 
their testimony." It is this testimony which 
shall yet conquer the world. "The Lord is 



HOIV MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 71 

risen indeed." 

Confession — it is not much, but it is half 
the gospel. As such, it is necessary to salva- 
tion. Faith implies the whole inward root, 
and confession the whole outward fruit of god- 
liness. Faith is the heat, and confession the 
light of the Christian life. Confession is the 
outward act by which is expressed and com- 
pleted the inward choice. It is supplemental 
to faith. It is necessary to obedience. "Ye 
are my witnesses to these things, " saith the 
Lord. "In the mouth of two or three wit- 
nesses shall a thing be established. Whoso- 
ever shall confess me before men, him will I 
confess before my Father and the holy angels. " 
It is necessary to gratitude. If you had been 
in Washington, on the fourth of March, 1881, 
you might have seen a touching picture. A 
noble man was inaugurated Chief Magistrate 
of the Republic. With his right hand upheld 
toward Heaven, swearing to support the con- 
stitution, he kissed the open Bible, and then, 
turning, embraced an aged woman, gray- 
haired and wrinkled, and printed a loving kiss 
upon her lips. She was his mother. The 
gratitude of his heart, in loving recognition of 



72 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

his obligation to her who walked through the 
Valley of the Shadow of Death to give him 
birth, whose tired feet rocked his cradle, and 
whose heart yearned in affection for him, 
prompted him to confess her before the onlook- 
ing multitude. A patient in a hospital, suffer- 
ing from a painful, if not mortal disease, said 
to the surgeon: "Recover me to health and I 
will shout your name high as the heavens." 
Gratitude inspired that promise. What shall 
we say of, what shall we do for, Him who 
hath been more than a mother, more than a 
physician to our souls? Shall we not confess 
him before men? 

Finally, it is necessary to service. "Out of 
the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou 
ordained strength." In the economy of God, 
He has made it possible for us to labor for 
Him in numberless ways, not the least effect- 
ive among which, is "the word of our testi- 
mony." 

In a certain congregation was a man who, 
though he supported the gospel liberally with 
his means, had never yielded himself to the 
will of God. He was the subject of many 
prayers, the object of deep solicitude. One 



HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 73 

Sabbath morning, he arose from his pew, 
walked down the aisle, and as he extended 
his hand to the pastor, said, "During the last 
week, I have been brought to see my need of 
a personal Savior. I desire to ally myself 
publicly, with His people." All who knew 
him were rejoiced at his open avowal of faith 
in Christ. A little later, the minister, in a 
private interview with him, inquired what it 
was that influenced him most powerfully to 
begin the Christian life. ( Possibly the pastor 
was anxious to know which of his sermons 
brought the man to conviction.) He was 
surprised to hear the answer, "I chanced to 
attend a meeting of the young people last 
Tuesday evening, in the chapel. They were 
relating their experience. A boy of ten or 
twelve years of age spoke. His speech was 
artless and simple, and perfectly sincere. The 
boy said, 'One Sunday, not long ago, the 
minister preached on the call of Samuel. I 
went home, and thought all day about the 
closing words of the sermon, If God calls you, 
O children, answer Him, or He may never 
call again. I retired early, but could not 
sleep. I thought, it may be God is calling 



74 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

me. I got up and knelt at the bedside to 
pray. My father heard me, and asked if I 
was sick. I told him I was not, but that I 
felt very bad. Then father came into my 
room, and found me kneeling, and he came 
and knelt by me, and prayed for me, and — 
well, I don't know how it is, but somehow, 
I felt so happy, I could not keep from saying 
Glory! Glory! I am happy now. My soul 
is full of joy, and peace, and love. '" The 
gentleman continued: "The words of that 
child were the most convincing and persua- 
sive sermon I ever heard. His testimony was 
so positive, yet so modest; so sublime in its 
unaffected simplicity, that it touched my heart 
like an angel's message. That child led me 
to Jesus." As the pastor heard this explana- 
tion, he remembered the prophecy of Isaiah, 
"A little child shall lead them." 

One of the pleasantest surprises in store for 
us, when we enter Heaven, will be to dis- 
cover that our acts and words in life, which 
we counted of little significance, but where- 
in we confessed Christ before men, have been 
the means, in the providence of God, of turn- 



HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 75 

ing many to righteousness. Then, 

"When Jesus has found you, tell othejs the story. 

Thus, believing in Him unto righteousness, 
and confessing Him unto salvation, having 
glorified Him on earth, you shall be glorified 
with Him presently. 



WHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 

"Behold, now is the accepted time, behold 
now is the day of salvation." — II Corinthians, 
vi. 2. 

IN the Yosemite Valley, the wonder garden 
of the Western world, in the sunset shadow 
of El Capitan, is a little lakelet, scarce 
three times larger than this room, on whose 
level brim no breeze e'er made a ripple or storm 
produced a wave. Silent and serene it sleeps 
hidden in its bed among those everlasting 
hills, "rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun." 
Flowers and grass grow on its border, each 
petal and each spear reflected in the glassy 
surface beneath. Birds bathe their plumage 
at its edge, and see their perfect image in its 
mirror. When clouds in the sky roll east- 
ward, eastward roll the shadows on the pool 
beneath. When the stars twinkle in the dome 
of night, on the bosom of that little lakelet 
glitter the stars below. The natives say that 

76 






IVHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 77 

once an Indian maiden, proud of her beauty, 
bent from a birch canoe to see her face in 
that water. She lost her balance and fell 
over, and sank. Friends sought for her body, 
but could not recover it, for the little lakelet 
is so deep that they had no instrument of 
sufficient length to reach the bottom. Possibly 
this is a mere fancy. However that may be, 
the pool is there, and the plummet line sounds 
a depth of more than a hundred feet. No 
one would suppose, on looking at the little 
lakelet that it is so deep. 

So, there are some little words in the Eng- 
lish tongue, so easy an infant's lips can utter 
them, yet in meaning and in depth of thought 
conveyed, they are unfathomed and unfathom- 
able. Think of the word "God," only three 
letters, yet that name represents the source 
of all blessings, the fountain of all life, the 
infinite and self-existent power. Or the term 
"love." Four letters spell that mystic pas- 
sion, "the key of all history, the soul of all 
tragedy." Think of the word "sky." Three 
letters name a vast array of worlds and firma- 
mental fires, with unceasing chronometry of 
revolutions. The word "sea" suggests, little 



78 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

as it is, the mighty liquid plane on which float 
all the fleets and navies of the world. 

It is so with the word which occurs twice in 
our text, "Now." How much it means! 
Adapting Tupper's words to suit the theme, 
we might well say, 

"A volume in a word, an ocean in a tear, 
A seventh Heaven in a glance, a whirlwind in a sigh, 
The lightning in a touch, a millennium in a moment. ' ' 

Bound up in this word are life, or death; 
success or failure; wailing dirge or happy an- 
them; barren desert or blooming garden; sal- 
vation or condemnation; Heaven or Hell. It 
touches time; it touches eternity Like the 
thunderings of Jehovah from Sinai, like trum- 
pet tones from some archangel's lips, rings out 
the great, deep, immeasurable word "Now," 
through all the periods of God's word. Lis- 
ten: "Turn now every one from his evil way. 
Come, for all things are now ready. Do ye 
now believe? There is therefore now no con- 
demnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. 
Beloved, now are we the sons of God. Now 
therefore ye are no more strangers, but friends. 
Christ hath entered into Heaven, now to ap- 
pear in the presence of God for us. Now the 



WHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 79 

God of all peace be with you. Behold, now 
is the accepted time; behold, now is the day 
of salvation." 

The frequency with which the word occurs 
in the Holy Scriptures, joined as it is so often 
with invitation, injunction, warning, and ex- 
hortation, teaches us 

I. First, the value of the present. — 
Said Garfield, "To-day is a king in disguise." 
Alexander the Great, in answer to the ques- 
tion, how he had conquered the world, replied, 
"By not delaying." Every man who has at- 
tained success in life, every hero of renown, 
every prominent actor on the world's stage, 
every character whose life marks an epoch in 
the history of nations, every great reformer, 
who, like Luther, has battered down the 
thrones of tyranny in Church or State, owes 
the accomplishment of his desires, the attain- 
ment of his purposes, and the fulfillment of 
his aims to a recognition of the worth of the 
present. Napoleon knew the necessity of tak- 
ing advantage of passing time, when, contrary 
to the advice of many of his counselors, he 
crossed the Alps at midwinter, and marched 
triumphantly into Italy. Both in national 



80 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

and individual history, much depends upon 
the utilization of present opportunities. I 
doubt not, when the Israelites came to Kadesh 
Barnea, and heard the report of the spies con- 
cerning Canaan, and refused to go over and 
take possession of the land, they intended to 
go over some time, after a while, when they 
were stronger, whenever that might be. In 
a year, or five years, or ten years, they might 
undertake the conquest, but not now. Two 
thirds of that number never had another op- 
portunity to go over into the promised land. 
They never came to Kadesh again. I never 
think of that place on the border land between 
the wilderness of Sin and the fruitful fields, 
orchards, and vineyards of Canaan, but that 
I involuntarily think of present opportunities 
postponed. 

In the life of Saul there is an example 
of this same blunder men make by slight- 
ing passing privileges. While he was king, 
proud of his lofty position, and vain of 
his successes in battle, he grew forgetful of 
his vows to God. Once he loved God. It 
was the Divine hand that placed him on the 
throne. But he forgot his dependence on the 



WHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 81 

King of Kings, and willfully neglected the ad- 
vice of Samuel, the prophet, who had been 
his counselor in years gone by. Adversity 
came, "But in the time of his distresses did 
he trespass still more against the Lord." By 
and by, on the eve of an awful battle, shorn 
of his glory and his power, he comes to a 
clairvoyant by night and asks to see Samuel 
Up before him rises the venerable form of the 
prophet, who informs him that the Lord hath 
rent the kingdom out of his hands and to- 
morrow he and his sons shall die. The result 
of that battle would have been different had 
he heeded Samuel's voice, when the prophet 
was still alive. "Bring me up Samuel." 
Through the ages those tearful words have 
come, to show how sad it is and useless to 
call up wasted opportunities. 

"Of all sad words of tongue and pen, 
The saddest are these: 'It might have been.-' 

"Might have been" is only the past tense of 
may be. 

I know of no sight beneath the skies of 
heaven half so sad as a wrecked and ruined 
man. Health ruined because he neglected 
to correct his evil habits when it was possible 



82 COUNSEL AND COMFORT 

and easy to do so. Fortune wrecked, because 
he neglected to make a safe investment, which, 
if made would have secured him wealth ample 
for his comfort all through life. Soul-wrecked, 
because he neglected to make the start in 
Christian faith and conduct when he was 
susceptible to the influences of the Gospel, 
when the Stranger was knocking at the door. 
Do you know of anything better calculated to 
make men weep and angels mourn, if angels 
ever mourn, than the torn and tangled threads 
of such a life? 

As failure so often results from delay, so 
success as often is contingent upon faithful- 
ness in the improvement of now, the omnipo- 
tent now, the living now. "Now is the watch- 
word of the wise. Now is the balance of the 
prudent. To-day is the trial of thy fortitude. 
To-day is thy watch, O sentinel. To-day is 
thy reprieve, O captain." "To-day is an 
angel; wrestle with him and say, *I will not 
let thee go, until thou bless me.'" To-day is 
a garden; pluck flowers in it, ere the flowers 
fade and wither. To-day is a banquet; feast 
upon its manna while the manna is fresh. To- 
day is a temple; worship in it while the en- 



WHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 83 

trance is ajar. 

I see before me so many young people. To 
you I say to-day, if you would in the end of 
life look back upon a happy, useful record, 
take advantage of the present. Eternity alone 
can tell how much of good has been done in 
the way of stimulating youth to noble effort 
by Longfellow's lines, 

" Let the dead past bury its dead, 
Act, act in the living present, 
Heart within and God o'erhead." 

Many people live wholly in the past. They 
talk of the "good old times" in the years of 
yore, and long for their return. They lament 
the decline of the church, and say with solemn 
face and mournful tones, "The church isn't 
what it once was. When I was young they 
had sermons that were sermons, they had 
singing that was singing. Everybody and 
everything was better then than now." God 
pity such people! They are in every com- 
munity and in every church. You know them. 
You can feel their presence near you like an 
iceberg. They have their parallels in the old 
colored people of the South, whose most fre- 
quent phrase is "Befo' de wah." In their be- 
nighted minds, the degrading slavery of olden 



84 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

times was vastly better than liberty. God 
pity all such! They are living in the past. 

They are dead to the present. A man said 
to me once (he was a minister), "Why sir, our 
church is ancient, our church has a history." 
That is a good thing to have — a history, but 
if that's all we have, we are in poor condition 
for present work. The "Great Eastern" has 
a history, an heroic history, but it isn't reli- 
able now to carry freight or passengers. If 
there is one within my hearing who lives in 
memory more than in the present, this text is 
for you, "Now is the day of salvation," not 
yesterday, but now. 

It is quite possible that some postpone 
the claims of Christianity, on account of 
a remembrance of the guilty past. The 
recollection of your sins is a bar to your 
progress in religion. Your past, you say, is a 
Paradise Lost. A great dark blot covers the 
page of your spent biography. In answer 
to the preacher's inquiry, "Will you receive 
Christ to-day?" you reply, "Not to-day. I 
cannot get away from the past." To you I 
quote the text, "Now is the accepted time." 
Leave the past to your Savior, commit your 



WHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 85 

scarred and mutilated record to His mercy, 
and do the best you know just now. 

11 O what a glorious record had the angels of me kept 

Had I done instead of doubted, had I walked instead of 
crept, 

Yet my soul, look not behind thee, thou hast work to do 
at last. 

Let the brave toil of the future overarch thy crumbling 
past, 

Build each great act high and higher, build it on the con- 
quered sod 

Where thy weakness first fell bleeding, where thy first 
prayer was to God." 

Yesterday, with the memory of all its sins, 
should be a storm to drive your bark into the 
haven of to-day. The arms of God alone can 
rescue you from the past. After the Savior 
has said, "Thy sins be forgiven thee;" after 
God has said, "I will cast thy sins behind 
me;" after the Judge has said, "I will blot 
out thy sins, and remember them against 
thee no more forever," you are ineffably fool- 
ish to dwell longer in the past. "The past is 
gone and gone forever — it is thine no longer, 
but there is a present which is still thy own." 
Marvelous was the impression made upon an 
audience of drunkards by the sentence of a 
prominent preacher, "Your lives are still be- 
fore you," and it was true. 



80 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

There is another class of persons who treat 
the present equally unwisely. They live not 
so much in the past as in the future. Their 
word is not "yesterday," but "to-morrow." 
They pledge themselves to high and holy 
vows — they will begin keeping them to-mor- 
row. They make great resolutions — they 
will carry them out to-morrow. They will 
turn over a new leaf — to-morrow. They will 
do better — to-morrow. They will give their 
hearts to God — to-morrow. To-morrow is a 
fated lie. "Tomorrow is in the calendar of 
sluggards, but nowhere can it be found in all 
the hoary registers of time. To-morrow is a 
weakling child: Fancy is its mother, folly its 
father." 

•'To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow, 
Creeps in this pretty pace from day to day, 
To the last syllable of recorded time; 
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
The way to dusty death. ' ' 

So says the Bard of Avon; and Persius 
echoes the same thought, 

* 'Unhappy he who does his word adjourn, 
And to to-morrow would the search delay; 
His lazy morrow will be like today.*' 

If we could take a census of this city upon 
the question, "Do you expect some time to be 



IVHE N SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 87 

a Christian ?" we would find few, if any, who 
would not say, "I will be a Christian some 
time." Yes, but when? Some other time, 
but not to-day. How prone we all are to 
adjourn attention to our soul's salvation. It 
should not be so. You look for victory in 
the future. God grant that you may attain 
the highest summit of your worthy ambition. 
God grant you your desire to conquer in the 
battle of the years. If all good gifts were 
mine to give, my heart would prompt me to 
offer you this day the crown you covet. But 
I cannot — it is not mine to give. It is yours 
to gain, and you alone can gain it. Hear 
me: you will conquer when the battle comes, 
in proportion as you prepare for the battle 
before the trumpet sounds, and the drum- 
beat is heard. Make ready for the future in 
the present, so that when opportunity offers 
itself for promotion and preferment you will 
not be found wanting. Now is the period of 
preparation. 

Regarding delay in important matters (and 
you will admit that religion is not unimport- 
ant), I remark: 

II. It is unscriptural. If I can prove this 



88 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

proposition, it should be sufficient to pursuade 
you to immediate action. The Bible is a sure 
and sufficient guide, a revelation of God's 
will concerning us. Perfect discipline is con- 
ditioned upon perfect obedience. Shall the 
child refuse to carry out the commandment 
of his father? No, if he is a true son, he 
will not hesitate or inquire why. Shall a 
soldier delay to obey an order from his com- 
mander, or stop to reason why? God is our 
Father, our Commander, and so, when He 
bids, when we hear his call to duty, shall we 
not respond? What are his wishes concerning 
us? Listen: "Choose ye this day whom ye 
will serve. Consecrate yourselves to-day. 
Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. To- 
day if ye will hear his voice." 

Is this not enough? He has said it. We 
will obey. 

III. Delay is unnecessary. There is no 
reason of convenience or expediency that 
prompts us to procrastinate this vital matter 
of our soul's salvation. Will it be easier to 
repent to-morrow? No. You know and we 
all know that the 'longer repentance is post- 
poned, the harder it will be to repent when 



WHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 89 

we decide to take Christ as our Savior. Not 
that it will be harder for Him to save, but 
there is such a thing as a seared conscience, 
a hardened heart, a spirit unimpressionable 
and unsusceptible to heavenly influences. 
This leads me to remind you that — 
IV. Delay is dangerous. 

"That we would do 
We should do when we would: for this would changes, 
And hath abatements, and delays as many 
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents.' ' 

It is an old saying that the road of By and 
By leads to the town of Never. To postpone 
praying is, possibly, never to pray at all. I 
think some one is saying secretly, "Oh, you 
need not try to scare me." I do not purpose 
to scare you, but I have known people to be 
terrified by a less dreadful thing than a warn- 
ing from God. The falling of a window in 
church, the simultaneous rush of an audience 
toward the door at an alarm of fire, the crash 
of a railroad train — these things have been 
known to cause terror in the minds of stal- 
wart men. It would be the part of wisdom 
for you to heed the words of the Savior, 
"Watch therefore, for ye know neither the 



90 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

day nor the hour wherein the Son of man 
cometh." 

Do you hope to repent at the eleventh hour? 
There was one who turned to Christ in his 
death moment, and received the assurance 
of acceptance. As the old divines say, one 
death bed repentance is recorded in the Script- 
ures, that none might despair, but only one, 
that none might presume. I knelt once at 
the death-bed of a man, and tried to comfort 
him by speaking words of hope, that if he 
would, he might still be saved. His wail still 
echoes in my ears, "Too late, too late, I have 
sinned away my day of grace!" So he died. 
The blind man at the outskirts of Jericho 
heard the footsteps of a passing throng. 
"What is it? Who is it?" He asked. "Jesus 
of Nazareth passeth by." He cried aloud, 
and the Savior heard him, and touched his 
long unopened eyes to behold the sky and 
earth, and most of all, the Great Physician's 
face. Well was it for him that he cried to 
Jesus then, for the Savior never passed that 
way again. Young man, you who hear my 
words, Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. When? 
Now. Where? Here. He may never pass 



IVHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 91 

this way again. Call on him this very hour. 
Say not no to his overtures of mercy. Say 
not no, I beseech you, else sometime when 
you stand before His judgment seat, you 
should cry, "Is there no mercy for me?" and 
the answer should come, a reverberation of 
your denial here, preserved on the sensitive, 
but indelible phonograph of eternity, "No! 
No!" 

A few years ago, a young man in Brooklyn, 
passing a church on Sabbath evening, attracted 
by the songs that floated out, entered the 
sanctuary, took his seat, and listened to the 
preaching of the Gospel. At the close of the 
sermon, the pastor said, "If there is one here, 
who will yield his will to Christ, and start out 
on the line of eternal life, will he now come 
forward, and give me his hand and name,;" 
The young man's heart was touched. He 
remembered the training of his early years, 
his mother's prayers, his father's blessings. 
He stepped from the pew, walked down the 
aisle, and as he gave his hand and name to 
the minister, he pledged himself to spend the 
balance of his life in the service of Christ. 
He went out of the church that night, anticipat- 



92 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

ing a long lifetime in religious labor. Little 
thought he that he had heard the evening bells 
chime for the last time — that he had seen the 
sun go down upon the last day that he would 
spend on earth. The next day he went out 
upon the bay in a boat with some friends. 
The boat capsized, and he, with his com- 
panions was drowned. Happy was that 
choice. 

I close by repeating the lines of Fanny 
Crosby: 

"So near to the kingdom, yet what dost thou lack, 

So near toithe Kingdom, what keepeth thee back? 
Break down every idol, though dear it may be, 

And come to the Savior now pleading with thee. 

So near that thou hearest the songs that resound 

From those who believing, a pardon have found; 

So near, yet unwilling to give up thy sin, 

When Jesus is waiting to welcome thee in. 

O come, or thy season of grace will be past, 

The door wilj be closed, and this call be thy last; 

O where wouldst thou turn if the light should depart 

That comes from the Spirit, and shines on thy heart? 

To die with no hope, hast thou counted the cost? 
To die out of Christ, and thy soul to be lost! 

So near to the Kingdom; O come we implore, 

While Jesus is knocking, come enter the door." 



VI 

WHAT AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 

"But we all, with open face, beholding as 
in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed 
into the same image from glory unto glory, 
as by the Spirit of the Lord." — 2 Cor. Hi. 18. 

IN Italy there is a cathedral, far-famed 
among pilgrims to that land for its snowy 
statues, and the exquisite paintings that 
adorn its frescoed walls. Away up above the 
main chapel is a tower-room to which leads a 
long flight of narrow stairs. The traveler fol- 
lows a guide up the weary way, until amidst 
darkness that seems at first like midnight, he 
stands in silence waiting for the guide to 
speak. "Look at that wall." He looks, and 
says, "I see nothing there." "Wait a little 
while," replies the guide. He waits. Soon 
a dim light floods the room. "Now 
look." The traveler sees nothing yet 
except the misty surface of a wall. But 
little by little the light grows brighter, 

93 



94 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

until he descries upon the wall the faint out- 
lines of a picture. As yet, no figure nor feat- 
ure can be seen. The guide says, "Be pa- 
tient; keep on looking." Presently, in the 
increassing light he catches the vision of a 
wing here, a flower there. "Keep on look- 
ing." Now see — the twilight has melted into 
day, and there, in all the beauty of a master's 
skill is a painting which transfixes the eye, 
and charms the mind. 

Such, for four thousand years, was the 
gradual unfolding of God's truth to the world. 

For twenty- five hundred years, the vast 
majority of the children of men were in the 
dim mist of starlight. Then came the Mosaic 
dispensation, which, though the darkness 
had grown somewhat less dense, was but a 
partial revelation, shining dimly through a 
veil, obscurely taught in types and emblems, 
vaguely hinted at in rites and ceremonies, half 
disclosed, yet half concealed in mystic prophe- 
cies. Fifteen hundred years went by, and 
the starlight melted into the gray dawn of 
the world's first Christmas day, when the Sun 
of Righteousness arose with healing in His 
wings. For the first time in the ages, the full 



AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 95 

daylight shown, touching with its earliest 
beams the hill-tops and valleys of Judea, and 
afterward diffusing its brightness throughout 
the world. When Jesus came, the dimming 
veil fell from the face of Truth, and the sec- 
ond gospel — the gospel of Love, fronted the 
world with open face, on which shone the 
blazing glory of the Holy Ghost, with a far 
greater luster than that of the Holy Place in 
the old-time Tabernacle where the Shekinah 
dwelt, under the wings of the Cherubim that 
over-arched the Mercy Seat. 

Christianity is an open-faced revelation. 
It has no esoteric symbolism. It is a posi- 
tive, intelligible, and absolute declaration of 
truth to men "in thoughts that breathe and in 
words that burn." The chapter from which 
this text is taken is a comparison of the Chris- 
tian and Mosaic dispensations by means of a 
series of contrasts. 

I. The first difference between the old and 
new covenants is in the fact that we behold 
the glory of the Lord with open face. Moses' 
face was veiled when he appeared before the 
people, to hide the glory of Divinity imparted 
to his countenance by association with God 



96 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

upon the mountain. That was but the type 
of the whole Mosaic economy; the glory of 
the Lord was veiled. From Moses to Christ, 
the Church of God was in the twilight shad- 
ows, as though the promise of the morning 
was but a mockery; as though the sun had 
halted just a few degrees below the horizon; 
as though God's time-piece had stopped at 
the figure of despair, and left His people to 
dwell in the dim mist forever. Prayerfully, 
yet almost impatiently, the souls of the faith- 
ful cried out, "How long, O Lord, how long? 
Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, and 
Thy glory unto their children. The Lord 
bless us, and keep us, and cause His light to 
shine upon us." At last the light came. The 
sentinel upon Mount Sier cried out, "Watch- 
man, what of the night?" The watchman, 
scanning with the telescope the heavens of 
the future, saw the Star of Bethlehem, the 
morning star, and shouted back, "Lo, the 
morning cometh." The morning came when 
the angel's song burst upon Bethlehem at 
midnight, and startled the shepherds on the 
plains. But the sun had not fully risen until 
a generation later, amidst the earthquakes 



AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 97 

and thunderings of Calvary, the veil of the 
Temple was rent in twain. Then, for the 
first time the people beheld the glory of the 
Lord with open face; for the first time in the 
tide of years the Church beheld the secret of 
the Holy of Holies. 

II. The second disparity between the old 
and new dispensations, is in the universality 
of the revelation here expressed in the words, 
"We all, beholding, are changed. " The first 
revelation of God to men was an unequal one. 
It was unequal because men were unequal. 
Just as the rosy rays of the morning kiss first 
the lofty peaks of mountains, so, at first the 
glory of Divine truth touched only great and 
overtowering souls, like Enoch, Abraham, 
Moses, David, Elijah and Isaiah. The masses, 
the majorities, were all in the valley below, 
where the mists hid the sky; but since Jesus 
came into the world, the Sun has been ascend- 
ing to His zenith, and His radiance pierces the 
solitude of the narrowest gorge, and every sin- 
sick, temptation-haunted, passion-blasted soul 
may behold His light, and the glory of His 
face. We have no religious aristocracy, no 
inspired few for an unenlightened multitude. 



98 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

We are all priests, all kings, made so by 
Christ. In Christianity there are no revela- 
tions of truth designed for, and understood 
by, the favored circle of specially initiated 
alone. Hand-maidens prophesy; young men 
see visions. Old men dream dreams. There 
is but one bar to a clear understanding of 
Christian doctrine, a bar, not of caste or of 
rank, but of character. "If any man — (thank 
God for those words) if any man will do my 
will, he shall know the doctrine." We need 
not stand in the outer court, while an anointed 
priesthood enters within the veil, beholds for 
us the glory of the Lord, and interprets for 
us the Word. We all may behold the glory 
of the Lord. He will commune with us all, 
and accept sacrifices from our own hands. 
There is now no one place to which alone 
may be applied the term "Sanctum Sanc- 
torum." Yonder in that dug-out on the prai- 
rie; yonder in the rude log cabin in the forest, 
where the woodsman lives; yonder in the 
little vine-grown cottage in the hamlet, where 
a poor sewing woman toils for her daily bread — 
there is the Holy Place, there the Most Holy 
Place, because there God imparts His power 



AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 99 

to faithful souls, and grants them grace to 
help in time of need. 

Herein is the democracy of the gospel. Not 
a Wesley, not a John Huss, not a Luther, not 
a Calvin, not the elect and great of any age 
or zone, be he pope, preacher, priest, or doc- 
tor of divinity, is commissioned to see God 
in our stead. "There is neither Jew nor 
Greek, bond nor free; all are one in Christ." 
Any system of belief or form of practice that 
excludes the people from the Holy Place, the 
altar of prayer, the communion table, the 
private study of the Scriptures, is a system 
and a form that is offensive to God, and cruel 
to humanity. Wherever the whispered prayer 
of a little child, wherever the feeble petition 
of the feeblest saint, spoken in words, or ex- 
pressed in sighs or sobs, or yearnings of the 
heart, or upward glancings of the eye, wherever 
any cry of helplessness is heard, there is the 
Mercy Seat, and there, wherever it may be, 
in answer to the cry of want, God flashes 
down, like an electric current, His saving 
grace, His mightiest power, His profoundest 
truth. Have you not seen that old wash- 
woman in faded calico dress and sun-bonnet, 



100 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

she who sits back in an obscure corner of the 
church, she who can scarcely spell out the 
promises of her Bible — have you not seen her 
eyes grow bright with a strange rapture, and 
a smile peaceful as an angel's make beauteous 
her wrinkled face, as she voiced the emotions 
of her soul by saying, "Glory! Glory! Glory !" 
She has a right to say it. With open face, 
she has beheld the glory of the. Lord. 

This is the beauty of the Christian dispen- 
sation. There is not one of us so poor, so 
weak, so ignorant, but that into his dark life, 
that light may shine, and upon his soul that 
glory rest. An old colored woman, in a class- 
meeting, in the African Church at Evanston, 
cried out, "O, Fse happy! I'se happy as I 
can be! De mornin' star am shinin' in my 
heart!" Inelegant as were her words, I think 
that in the sudden brightness of her Christian 
experience, intensified as it was by the emo- 
tional nature peculiar to her race, she had 
seen with open face the glory of the Lord. 

III. The author of our text calls attention 
to the fact that the Chrisian life is one of 
contemplation — of beholding. The prayer of 
Moses on Sinai, was "O Lord, I beseech 



AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 101 

Thee, show me Thy glory." That prayer 
was not answered then. The Lord explained, 
"There shall no man see Me and live." There 
is a beautiful tradition among the Jews that 
nearly forty years later as Moses stood upon 
Mount Pisgah, and looked westward across 
the fair valleys and vineyard-clad hills of 
Canaan, he fell to praying again, as of yore, 
"Show me Thy glory," and the Lord granted 
him his request, and looking on the face of 
God, he died. That is only a tradition, but 
it is suggestive of the fact that in Old Cove- 
nant times no man saw God at any time, be- 
cause human vision was not yet ready for the 
revelation, not yet strong enough to bear a 
sight of Him, from whose face "the earth and 
the heavens fled away, in the Apocalypse." 

Men had seen God's wisdom in the stars, 
His infinite design in the flowers, His terrible- 
ness in plague and pestilence, in overwhelm- 
ing flood, descending fire, and opening earth. 
They had seen the manifestation of His will 
in Providence, the unfolding of His purpose 
in history; but not until Jesus came were 
mortal eyes banqueted with a glimpse of the 
glory of the Lord; not until then had men 



102 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

beheld the likeness of Deity, the real glory of 
God. In the fulness of time He came, whose 
office was to reveal the glory of God to men. 
He was "God manifest in the flesh, Immanuel, 
God with us. We beheld His glory, the glory 
as of the only begotten of the Father, full of 
grace and truth. Who was the brightness of 
God's glory, and the express image of His 
person." He himself said, "I and the Father 
are one. He that hath seen me, hath seen 
the Father." But Jesus went away; how 
then can we behold him now? Must we suffer 
martyrdom with Stephen, who, bruised, bat- 
tered, mutilated, and bleeding, "looked stead- 
fastly into Heaven, and beheld the Son of 
God standing on the right hand of the Father?" 
Or must we be exiles like John, who as he 
wandered over the barren wastes of Patmos, 
saw Heaven opened, and described One 
"upon whose vesture and upon whose thigh a 
name was written, Lord of Lords and King 
of Kings?" No, we may discern Him with 
spiritual vision. The testimony of every be- 
liever since the Christian Church was founded 
has been, in the words of Mary on the Resur- 
rection morning, "I have seen the Lord." His 



AFTEP I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 103 

promise was, "I am with you alway, even unto 
the end of the world. " Once He stood at 
our heart's door knocking. We opened, and 
He came in, and abides within us, and now 
we behold Him, for He is in our hearts. 

Beauty is largely subjective; that is to say, 
many a face, and many an object is beautiful 
to us, for the reason that there is a love in 
our hearts that responds to the perception of 
that face or object. To illustrate: you might 
not think that my mother is very handsome, 
but I think she is the handsomest woman in 
the world. Her hands are beautiful to me — 
her hands, toil-marked and thin, that led me 
when I could not walk alone, that smoothed 
my crumpled pillow, and bathed my fevered 
brow. Her feet are beautiful to me — her feet 
that rocked my cradle many a sleepless night, 
when father was away, and none other but 
God was near. Her voice that sang to me 
when I was wakeful and restless; her shoulders, 
bent with the weight of years; her eyes, that 
looked affection at my obedience, and wept 
tears at my waywardness. Ah! she is beauti- 
ful, because I love her. I see her now — I 
shall always see her with the wonderful sight 



104 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

of the soul, long after she has gone to Heaven. 

So it is, in some sense, with Jesus. We 
apprehend Him by spiritual sight. We see 
Him in His Word, all the way from Moses to 
Malachi; we see Him in sacrifices, and cere- 
monies; more plainly than in prophecies, we 
see Him in His recorded life by the Evangel- 
ists. We see Him in everything good, and 
we see everything good in Him. In that 
bright star, we see some sign of the Star of 
Bethlehem; in the flowers of the field, we 
see reminders of the Rose of Sharon, and the 
Lily of the Valley; in the great rock, that 
stands like a sentinel on the hill-side, we see 
a symbol of Him who is the shadow of a great 
rock in a weary land; in the bread we eat, 
and in the water we drink, there come to us 
thoughts of the Bread of Heaven, and the 
Water of Life, which He declared Himself to 
be. We look toward Heaven, and there we 
see Him, "The fairest among ten thousand, 
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
world, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, pre- 
vailing to open the book and unseal the seals." 

The vision of His face strengthens us in 
trial, fortifies us against temptation, arms us 



ASTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 105 

for battle, inspires us to activity. You may 
have seen a copy of that painting of a race in 
a Roman Amphitheatre. There in the race- 
course are two trained athletes. Their mus- 
cles are like ship cables. Their necks are like 
the stag's for brawn. They are stripped of 
every weight that might impede their motion. 
They seem almost to breathe, upon the canvas. 
Above and around them, tier over tier, gallery 
beyond gallery, are the hosts of people. Yon- 
der is the Emperor; yonder the Vestal Vir- 
gins. The populace looks on, eager for the 
race to begin. I see that one of the two is 
glancing up to a far gallery, where waves a 
tri-colored flag. There are his friends. His 
wife is there. That is she who waves the 
banner. Looking at them, thinking of them, 
his strength is as the strength of ten. Their 
presence is a potent inspiration. I know 
which of those two racers first reached the 
goal. So do you. "Wherefore, seeing we 
also are compassed about with so great a 
cloud of witnesses, let us run with patience 
the race which is set before us, Looking 
Unto Jesus." 

The secret of a pure life is keeping our eyes 



106 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

on Jesus. Amidst the perils and dangers that 
meet us at every step, and surround us on 
every side, amidst the nameless temptations 
that assail us at the critical period of youth, 
our only security is to keep Jesus in sight, to 
be able to say with the Psalmist, "I have set 
the Lord always before me." Could that boy 
who not long ago left his home to go to a 
great and wicked city, yield to the voice of 
the tempter so long as he remembered his 
mother's words? As she gave him a parting 
kiss, she handed him a picture of herself and 
said, "Be good, my son, be good, and pure, 
and noble, and when you are tempted, take 
out this picture, look at it, and for my sake, 
say no." I think I see him, one night, as he 
has been solicited to do what would com- 
promise his honor and degrade his name, as 
he stops under the gas-light, and takes from 
his breast-pocket a photograph, and, looking 
upon the sweet face of her whose love is next 
to the Christ-love, says, "For her sake I will 
be a man." Such is the power of keeping 
before one's eyes a human face. What, then, 
is the omnific influence of always beholding 
Jesus, a Divine Ideal, a Heavenly Friend. 



AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 107 

The secret of Christian endurance in hard- 
ships, privations, and persecutions is keeping 
the eyes on Jesus. What were imprisonment, 
poverty, scourgings, ridicule, shipwreck, con- 
tumely, martyrdom— what were these all to 
Paul? He endured, "as seeing Him who is in- 
visible." A little boy who had been mangled 
on the railroad was carried to the hospital, 
where the doctors told him his limb must be 
amputated, and asked him if he thought he 
could stand the ordeal. He replied, "Send 
for my father; if he will hold my hand, I 
think I can stand it." Ah, my friends, we 
can endure animosities and disappointments, 
and sufferings of any kind, with Jesus standing 
by us all the time. His love is our comfort. 
His power is our shield. His wisdom is our 
counsel. His justice is our restraint. His 
mercy is our hope. His presence is our sup- 
port. The glory of His face is Heaven begun 
below. 

IV. I find that the words, "As in a glass," 
do not correctly intrepret the undoubted mean- 
ing in the Apostle's mind. The revised ver- 
sion reads, "Reflecting as a mirror does the 
glory of the Lord." One of the principles of 



108 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

optics is that a necessary accompaniment of 
vision is the reflection of the thing beheld. 
By the operation of this law, the world has 
been furnished one of the most unfailing de- 
tectors of crime. A mysterious murder has 
been committed: whom to suspect and arrest 
is not certain. Expert scientists say that if 
we examine the sensitive surface of the eye 
of the murdered person, we may discover a 
miniature photograph of the murderer. This 
may not be true; but it is true, in a very sig- 
nificant sense, that what we see we are likely 
to show. If we are beholding Christ, our 
characters will mirror Christ, and in time, 
men will say of us, as they look at our faces, 
hear our voices, and observe our deportment, 
"They have been with Jesus." An unbeliever 
in the Bible said tauntingly to a young Christ- 
ian, "Your religion is all moon-shine." This 
he said, meaning to charge that Christianity 
is a mere delusion. The young man replied, 
"You say Christianity is all moon-shine. Yes, 
it is. The moon shines by reflection from 
the sun, and I shall be happy if I may be able 
to reflect in my life, the light of Christ — the 
Sun of Righteousness." 



AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 109 

Here is a practical lesson. We must mani- 
fest what we believe. The thoughts of our 
minds, the hopes of our hearts, the emotions 
of our souls, the true motive of our lives, will 
be reflected from within, through the cold 
exterior, and appear to others. "We are liv- 
ing epistles, known and read of men." Our 
words, our walk, our work, our very faces, 
are scanned to see if in us is a reflection of 
Christ. If we have steadfastly beheld him, 
the beauty born of that contemplation will be 
visible. 

A little vagabond, friendless, homeless, shoe- 
less, coatless — save his coat of dirt — solicited 
pennies, in the fashion of his profession, of 
passers-by. He was crying, "Here ye are! 
Here ye are! Stand on my head twice for a 
penny!" An old lady came by, one of God's 
saints, in whose face was more of the gospel 
than in many a sermon. She heard him, and 
taking a few coins from her purse, she gave 
them to him, saying, "No, darling. Never 
mind standing on your head. Here's some 
money for keeping right side up. Good-bye." 
The little arab stood with wide-open eyes, 
looking after her, as she passed on, as if she 



110 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

were an angel. A sudden idea seized him; 
he turned to a comrade, and, pointing at the 
retreating form of the good old lady said, "Did 
you see that there lady's face? Did you hear 
her speak? She's God's wife!" Well, if she 
wasn't that, she was a member of His Church, 
which is a bride of Christ. 

V. Notice, that the Christian life is not 
only a life of beholding, and reflecting, but 
also a life of transformation. " Beholding, 
we are changed." This is the explanation of 
Christian morality, that those who behold the 
glory of the Lord, are changed. This change 
is wrought in the mind, producing conviction, 
in" the heart, producing regeneration; in the 
conduct, producing consecration; in the entire 
nature, resulting in sanctification. The best 
proof of the divinity of the Christian religion, 
the best answer to every argument that is 
urged against the gospel, is that men are 
changed by it. It transforms character. It 
beautifies homely faces, with the beauty of 
holiness. It changes lives of weakness and 
impotence into lives of power. It translates 
selfishness into sympathy, weariness into vigor, 
sadness and sighing into praise, dirges into 



AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? Ill 

doxologies, and from the soul it takes the love 
of vice, and supplants it with a desire for 
purity. 

You remember how, after Peter had healed 
the impotent man, the kindred of the high 
priest and their allies sought to controvert it. 
Doubtless some said, "We do not believe he 
healed the man; it is contrary to human ex- 
perience." Public interest was intense, and 
public passion was clamorous. The record 
says: "And beholding the man which was 
healed, standing with them, they could say 
nothing against it." Ah, that was the proof — 
the man standing there. And no matter what 
the world may say, no matter what infidelity 
may argue, the only effective answer that the 
Church can give is "the man standing there." 
He was sick; now he is whole. Here is one 
who was dumb; now he speaks. Here is one 
who was lame; now he leaps for joy. Here 
is one who was' a drunkard; now he is a sober 
man. Here is one who stole; he steals no 
more. Here is one who was cruel to his 
friends, his wife, his own sweet little child; 
now he is kind and gentle. Here is one who 
was narrow-minded; his soul and sympathy 



112 COUNSEL AND COMFORT, 

did not take in a large number of people; 
last night I heard him pray "Thy kingdom 
come; Thy will be done in earth as it is in 
Heaven." Here is one who was ambitious, 
he aspired to power, and he coveted popu- 
larity; now he says, "Yea, doubtless, and I 
count all things but loss for the excellency of 
the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." 

By what process, and by what power, is 
this transformation wrought? "From glory 
unto glory, into the same image, as by the 
Spirit of the Lord." Notice, the transforma- 
tion is wrought upon us by a power not our 
own. We behold; we are changed. Having 
Jesus in sight, by the operation of a law by 
which we simulate the character of that we 
love, "we are changed into His image." "Think 
of Buddha, and you become like Buddha." 
Think of Christ and you are changed into 
the same image. The Church of the middle 
ages has transmitted this idea to us in stories 
of monks that set before them an image, and 
looking on it for years, in their old age bore 
on their brows, and hands, and feet, and in 
their sides, the marks of the Calvary Cruci- 
fixion. Far better for us, and for the world, 



AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 113 

if we bear on our hearts the marks of Jesus' 
death. Far better for us and for the world, 
if we bear in our hearts the power of Jesus' 
life. 

I walked along the aisles of a cathedral not 
long ago. I came to a bright spot on the 
marble floor. The marble seemed to be col- 
ored and tinted in the finest lights and shades. 
There on the floor was a picture — the picture 
of a mother and her child, the latter' s head 
halo-encircled. Around were seraphs and 
cherubs, white-pinioned and fair. What was 
it? A mosaic in marble? No. Look up. Do 
you see that stained-glass window? The sun- 
light as it streams through, casts this reflec- 
tion on the unconscious stone. Now suppose 
that marble could be replaced with the sensi- 
tized plate of the photographer; if the light 
above is strong enough, and the light below is 
not too strong, the image of the Madonna 
and the Christ-child will be so indelibly im- 
printed upon the plate that it can never be 
effaced. So, upon a heart made sensitive by 
the influence of the Holy Spirit, the image 
not of the infant Jesus and His Mother, but 
of the Divine Savior, is indelibly imprinted. 



114 COUNSEL /MD COMFORT. 

It is a slow process; it takes a life-time to 
to arrive at perfect beauty, but as the years 
go by the image is more and more developed, 
and sometime "we shall come in the unity of 
the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of 
God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of 
the stature of the fullness of Christ." 



VII. 

THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE — THE COMING KINGDOM. 

u Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed 
be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will 
be done in earth, as it is in Heaven." — Matt, 
vi. p-io. 

THUS, He who came to earth to teach 
men how to live and how to die, taught 
men to pray. Thus the Church has 
prayed for nearly nineteen hundred years. In 
these words the palsied tongue of age and the 
lisp of childhood's voice have joined as patri- 
arch and babe have knelt before the mercy 
seat, snowy locks and golden curls comming- 
ling. Thus we have often prayed the Savior's 
prayer. And what a prayer it is! So brief, 
yet long as eternity. So simple, yet so pro- 
found that sages and philosophers have 
adopted it as the expression of their souls' 
desires. So small, yet so comprehensive, 
and so almost infinite in its scope! 

There have been other prayers. They have 

115 



116 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

been formulated by the fancy of billiant genius, 
the mind of eminent learning, the heart of 
deep piety. They adorn our stately rituals, 
and dignify our awesome liturgies. Their poe- 
try has been perfect — just beautiful enough; 
their oratory has been perfect — just eloquent 
enough; their rhetoric has been perfect — just 
polished enough; their dimensions have been 
perfect — just long enough; but this prayer, 
artless and unembellished as it is, is still the 
wonderful prayer, the unexampled prayer, the 
church prayer, the prayer universal, the prayer 
of prayers. 

The world never knew such a prayer as 
this before Christ came. It may be true, as 
some have asserted (though their proof is 
slender), that it is but a modification of an 
invocation that had been used in the Temple 
service a thousand years before the advent of 
the Savior; nevertheless, when He uttered it, 
who by breathing His warm spirit into earth's 
chilly air, changed the whole destiny of the 
race, He gave to it a meaning it never had 
before. He widened and deepened and length- 
ened its significance. 

Said one who, years ago, was privileged to 



THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE. 117 

hear the matchless melody of the world's 
sweetest song as sung by Jenny Lind: "I had 
heard it sung before. Its words were as 
familiar to my mind as my a b c's. But 
when I heard that plain-faced Swedish girl, 
herself far away from friends and native land, 
pour out her soul in the song of 'Home, Sweet 
Home,' I thought I had never heard that 
song before. It was a revelation to me. I 
shall not soon forget it." 

So men may have pronounced this prayer 
millenniums before, but never until that morn- 
ing when the incarnate Son of God sat on the 
Judean hill-side, and declared unto his dis- 
ciples and the multitude the New Gospel, the 
Gospel of peace on earth and good will to 
men, never until that day had any one fully 
realized what it meant to say "Our Father." 
This was God's own and only Son speaking 
unto us all, and bidding us call His Father 
ours. In these words, "Our Father," is the 
seed-truth of two principles, namely, the pa- 
ternity of God and the fraternity of man. In 
the Old Testament, there as now and then a 
great soul who towered up above his fellows 
like a mountain top — who got a view of God's 



118 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

fatherhood; but this other idea, the brother- 
hood of man, had never dawned upon the 
thought of prophet, priest, or king before 
Christ taught it. 

Men had been praying thus, "Thy kingdom 
come in Israel; Thy will be done among the 
children of Abraham.' 7 Christ said, "Pray — 
pray Our Father which art in Heaven; hal- 
lowed be thy name among all nations; Thy 
kingdom come everywhere; Thy will be done 
in all the world. In Judea and in Samaria. 
In Jerusalem and in Rome. In Germany and 
Scandinavia. In England and in Ireland. In 
North America and in South America. In 
China and Japan. Among the Esquimaux of 
the Arctic zone, and the Zulus of the equato- 
rial Africa — everywhere. The kingdom come 
wherever man is found!" Great idea is this — 
the solidarity of society, the sisterhood of 
nations, the unity of the race, the Fatherhood 
of God, the Brotherhood of man. 

This was a new idea. Wendell Phillips 
said, "Ideas are more powerful than armies. 
They go booming through the world like can- 
non." This is the idea that has come rumbl- 
ing down the ages, at the same time the most 



THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE. 119 

dynamic destructive force, and the most divine 
reconstructive force the world has ever enter- 
tained. It has overthrown tyrannical govern- 
ments. It has deposed iniquitous dynasties. 
It has annihilated unjust institutions. It has 
revolutionized inequitable systems of society, 
and upon the ruins of what was, it has laid 
the foundation for governments more inde- 
pendent, institutions more merciful, and so- 
ciety more democratic. This idea reaches 
down and lays its sinewy but gentle hands 
upon the shoulders of a slave and says, "Come 
up, come up from the mire. You are not a 
brute; you are a man; come up." This idea 
teaches up and lays hand its upon the shoulders 
of a king, and says, "Come down, come down 
from the throne. You are not a god, you are 
a man; come down." Then this idea puts 
the hard hand of the sable African into the 
soft palm of the blue-eyed Saxon, and says, 
"Be at peace, be at peace; you are not ene- 
mies, you are brothers." 

Hear this, O Senators and Congressmen, 
Statesmen and Reformers, would-be solvers 
of the vexed and vexing race-problem! Hear 
this, ye gentlemen from Kansas and Carolina, 



120 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

this is the only voice, that like the Savior's 
on the Galilean Sea can hush to peace those 
troubled waters. Every other voice will only 
lash the more to fury the already furious 
storm. 

Do we need another statesman to help us 
settle the negro question? We need ten thou- 
sand men and women who have heard this 
prayer, and who pray it, and believe it, to 
assert the rights, to redress the wrongs, to 
heal the bruises, to feed the hunger, to quench 
the thirst, to clothe the nakedness, and train 
the hands, the heads, and the hearts of their 
brothers, be their skin yellow as saffron, white 
as snow, or black as a raven's wing. 

11 For all the sons of men are sons of God, 
Nor limps a begger but is nobly born, 
Nor wears a slave a yoke, nor czar a crown, 
That makes him more or less than just a man." 

Christ wrote no Magna Charta, Republican 
Constitution, or Emancipation Proclamation, 
but he gave utterance to an idea, which, when 
it developed, was the heart and center of those 
documents. That idea is the one I have men- 
tioned, the equality of man. It was not so 
much Grant, or the Army of the Potomac, or 
the Union, as it was this idea, that triumphed 



THE CHRISTIANS HOPE. 131 

at Appomattox, a quarter of a century ago, 
when for the first time in two centuries and 
a half, on American territory, a black mother 
could press a baby to her breast and call it 
hers. 

This prayer contains more than we think, 
more than we can understand, and yet an 
infant's lips can utter it, and an infant's mind 
take in somewhat of its meaning. 

I think that if all the record of Christ's life 
could be destroyed (the thought is almost 
irreverent, for not one word or work of His 
can be destroyed by man, not till man puts 
out the flaming torch of the sun, or dries up 
the ocean's liquid fountain), but were such a 
thought possible, and we were to see the 
whole Christian system going, would not we 
all, with one accord, Jew and Gentile, Papist 
and Protestant, Unitarian and Trinitarian, 
Liberal and Orthodox, unite in saying, "Stop! 
Spare us something to cling to!" What shall 
it be? The Sermon on the Mount, containing 
as it does the beatitudes and this prayer, the 
brightest gems in the Savior's crown of 
speech. 

Have we not thanked God again and again 



122 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

for the gift of this prayer in His Word? Have 
we not found in it expressed the emotions of 
our souls which struggle for utterance? As 
we fainted on some sun-scorched pathway of 
life, or as we crept through some tangled 
wilderness, or as we struggled up some rugged 
road, or, like the disciples of old, as we toiled 
in rowing against a contrary wind, when our 
spirits were disquiet and our souls sad, when 
our words were choked with tears, and our 
quivering lips were dumb, then have we not 
turned faith's vision beyond the sun-scorched 
path and the tangled way, beyond the rugged 
hillside road, and beyond the mountains in 
whose caverns the winds hide that toss the sea, 
toward the sky, and thought this prayer when 
we could not speak it? 

"Thy kingdom come." These words alone 
are enough to take us a life-time to learn. 
Each one weighs a ton. "Thy kingdom 
come." What does that mean? It means 
that things are not what they ought to be. 
It means that things shall sometime be what 
they ought to be. It means that when things 
are what they ought to be it will only be when 
His will is done on earth as it is done in 



THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE. 123 

Heaven. 

Three years ago, I officiated at the funeral 
of a lovely little girl, the pride of her parents' 
eyes, the joy of their life. We buried her 
angel face and waxen form in a grave-yard 
thirty miles from the city in which the family 
had lived, because the family burial-place and 
monument were there. The train did not 
arrive till late. The sun had gone down be- 
fore we entered the cemetery. I can never 
forget that April evening. The little coffin 
was lowered into the grave. The ceremony 
of the church was finished, and we heard the 
falling of the clods on the coffin-lid. Ah, is 
there any sound like that in all the world so 
fit to break a mother's heart? How that 
young mother wept! What could I say? 
Nothing. I, too, was a mourner there. So 
were we all. Looking down, I saw beside the 
grave, as yet untrodden by our feet the first 
frail flower of Spring-time. Symbol of the 
resurrection! I pointed the mother to it, and 
through her tears she smiled. Emblem of a 
precious promise! Looking up, I saw just 
above the grave-yard as it seemed, the bright- 
est star of all the sky, silent and serene. I 



124 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

pointed upward, and the mourners, ere they 
left the little mound, beheld it, emblem of 
eternal hope. The father wrote me a little 
while ago, "We never think of Bessie's grave 
without thinking of that Easter flower that 
grew beside it, and the star that shone above 
it." Thank God for hopes and promises! 

Such is the view of the world that this 
prayer takes. It sees the graves of weakness 
and the graves of age; the graves of igno- 
rance and the graves of sin; the graves of 
hatred and the grave of lust; it sees the whole 
earth honeycombed with graves, but it says, 
"See! beside the graves are flowers of prom- 
ise, and look! there in the sky of the future 
is the bright star of the millennial morning. 
These tell us of better things to come." 

So this prayer is more than a prayer. It 
is a prophecy. He who taught us to pray 
"Thy kingdom come," knew all things, and 
saw the end from the beginning. He took 
in the divine perspective, and this prayer 
authorized by Him, is a promise that His 
kingdom will come. It is either a glorious 
prophecy or an infinite mockery. Christ 
would not teach us to pray for that which 



THE CHRISTIANS HOPE. 125 

shall never be. 

You say, "Then, if His kingdom is sure to 
come, why need we pray for it?" Do you 
not know that every special blessing is con- 
tingent upon two laws, and is secured only by 
compliance with them? These are, divine 
interposition and human co-operation. You 
will observe that so far as the ultimate ratio 
is involved, either of these laws is inoperative 
independent of the other. 

The Savior's disciples preached often, say- 
ing "Repent and be converted." It is easy to 
see in this command two parties and two 
parts concerned. Man's part is to repent. 
God's part is to convert. This is equivalent 
to the promise, "You do the repenting, and 
I will do the converting." This same Savior 
said "Come unto me and I will give you rest." 
It is for us to come. It is for Christ to give 
us rest. Paul said to the Philippian jailer, 
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou 
shalt be saved." We believe. God saves. 
Believing is active. Being saved is passive. 
Saith the Spirit, "Behold I stand at the door 
and knock. If any man will hear my voice, 
and open unto me, I will come in and sup 



126 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

with him and he with me." On one side, and 
that is our side, there are hearing and opening 
the door. On the other side, and that is His 
side, there are coming in and imparting the 
joy of communion. Oh, brother mine, which 
factor in that series is wanting in your life? 
The Savior has knocked. You have heard. 
He waits to come in, but do you not know 
that the door is locked, and the key is on the 
inside? 

Now some blessings God gives us uncondi- 
tionally. On the just and unjust alike falls 
the rain, shines the sun, beam the stars. For 
the just and unjust alike, the winds blow and 
the flowers bloom. But every spiritual bless- 
ing that comes to intelligent and enlightened 
men, is contingent on these two pinciples I 
have named. 

Now the tendency of too many of us is to 
fix our thoughts and fasten our faith upon one 
side of a truth, forgetful that it may have 
another side. So some Christians apprehend 
but one of these two great laws. Individually 
they look for some sudden work of trans- 
formation, some overwhelming experience of 
grace, some meteoric revelation of truth, with- 



THE CHRISTIANS HOPE. 127 

out any especial cause or antecedent on their 
part. They say they are waiting for a bless- 
ing. Well, they may wait until 

" The sun grows cold, 
And the stars grow old 
And the books of the judgment day- 
unfold. 

but never a current of grace or a vision of 
truth will flash into their souls — they have 
forgotten the law of human co-operation. 

In matters of more universal relations, they 
look for revivals of religion, and for success 
in missionary enterprises, yet refuse to move 
a muscle or donate a dollar, taking refuge, 
when they are urged to betsir themselves to 
earnest prayer and practical benevolence, in 
the words of Zechariah the prophet, "Not by 
might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith 
the Lord." 

Have they not read that before the walls of 
Jericho fell (though it was by God's omnific fiat 
that they fell) the people were commanded to 
fulfill certain conditions, upon obedience to 
which the result depended. Naaman was 
doubtless healed of his loathsome leprosy by 
divine interposition, but preliminary and ante- 
cedent to his recovery was faithful obedience 



128 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

to an apparently useless prescription. That 
was human co-operation. 

I need not illustrate the confluence of these 
two principles at greater length. The mar- 
riage miracle at Cana, the healing of the blind 
man, the resurrection of Lazarus, corroborate 
what I have said. Recall the promise re- 
corded by Malachi: "Bring ye all the tithes 
into the store- house, that there may be meat 
in mine house, and prove me now herewith, 
saith the Lord of Hosts if I will not open you the 
windows of Heaven and pour you out a bless- 
ing that there shall not be room to contain it." 
It is here clearly declared that churchly pros- 
perity is contingent on churchly liberality. 
"You bring in the tithes. I will pour out the 
blessing," saith the Lord of Hosts. 

In this last promise, and in the several in- 
stances I have enumerated as well as in many 
other cases, the census of which would weary 
you, it is clearly demonstrated that there is 
a work to do on the part of humanity in order 
to verify the preciousness of the promise of 
Divinity. 

In this prayer, and not only in this prayer, 
but in a comfortably large number of Scrip- 



THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE. 129 

tural prophecies, is the assurance that some 
time the kingdom of God shall come, and the 
angels that sang of the birth of the Christ- 
child in Judea shall again make the glad air 
of earth vibrate with the announcement of 
the glorious consummation of the plan God 
wrought out back in the sad bowers of Eden, 
for the absolute redemption of the race from 
sin, and the absolute enthronement of his Son 
in every nation and in every heart. 

"Thy kingdom come." It will come. It is 
coming. His truth will prevail, because it is 
His truth. Spring is coming soon. You plant 
flower seeds in the earth, and have faith that 
they will grow from seed to root, from root 
to stem, from stem to stalk, from stalk to 
branch, from branch to bud, and from bud to 
bloom. On what is your faith founded? On 
the life wrapped up in the seed? Somewhat 
but not entirely. Upon the richness of the 
soil? Somewhat, but not entirely. Your 
faith is founded on the moral certainty that 
after the seed has been planted, the warm 
rain will water it, the bright sun will smile 
upon it, and the forces from the sky will woo 
it from the sod and win it to perfection. 



130 COUNSEL j4ND COMFORT. 

We preach the Gospel here, and send it to 
the far-off continents and islands of the sea, 
and thus we sow the good seed in the soil of 
human hearts. The seed will grow. It will 
grow until the whole world is covered with 
the golden grain. It will grow because God's 
spirit will supplement the work of the sower, 
and give the harvest. It is for us to sow, but 
He that gives the increase is above. 

Wonderful thought is this: the coming of 
God's kingdom in the world contingent on 
what we do, and how soon we do it. When 
He bids us pray, "Thy kingdom come," He 
bids us work to the end for which we pray. 
Prayer is not a substitute for effort, but the 
natural antecedent to, and attendant of, effort. 
Work is not a substitute for prayer, but the 
natural subsequent to, and interpreter of, 
prayer. He who prays most earnestly, most 
really, will most put forth his energies in be- 
half of that for which he prays. He whose 
energies are most aroused in behalf of any- 
thing, will pray most sincerely for its accom- 
plishment. Melancthon prayed for the recov- 
ery of Luther. And straightway he went to 
the kitchen to prepare such food as would 



THE CHRISTIANS HOPE. 131 

give his friend nourishment. Many years ago 
a plague raged in London. The citizens peti- 
tioned the Crown that a form of prayer might 
be prepared by the clergy for use during the 
pestilence. Lord Palmerston was Prime Min- 
ister. He responded that such an action was 
in order, but not until the people were suffic- 
ently in earnest in the matter of staying the 
plague, to clean their streets and stables, and 
to flush their sewers. There was an outcry of 
indignation at the answer, and yet, though it 
may have been somewhat open to criticism in 
form, it was in fact both orthodox, and com- 
mon-sense-odox. It is an unspeakable im- 
pertinence to besiege the throne of grace for 
ends, the means to which are in our hands all 
unemployed. 

A little girl had fallen into a cistern, and 
had been rescued by her mother. Some one 
asked her if she was not afraid down there. 
"Oh no!" she replied, "tause I knew if I 
reached up dest as high as I tould, mamma 
would reach the rest." Ah, little darling, you 
have taught us a lesson in theology. We 
want a revival in this church. We want this 
altar consecrated by the tears of penitence. 



133 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

We want other music, sweeter melody than 
comes from this treasury of soft and soothing 
sounds — the hallelujahs of sinners saved by 
grace divine. Shall we have it? Yes, if we 
do all we can to invite it, God will send the 
revival. We want Christ's kingdom to come 
in the world. Will it come? Yes, if we do 
all we can to spread His gospel, He will do 
the rest. Have you noticed the electric light 
on the street-corner yonder? See! A carbon 
point extends upward a little distance from 
below. There an electric current ends. An- 
other carbon point extends downward a little 
distance from above. There another electric 
current ends. The carbons meet. The currents 
meet. A light flashes out in the darkness. 
So, up from the earth there goes the carbon 
point of human co-operation. Down from 
Heaven there comes the carbon point of divine 
interposition. The carbons meet, andlo! a 
great light radiates from the point of meeting. 
It is the light of the Coming Kingdom — the 
Kingdom of Heaven among men. 

Praying is working, and working is praying. 
While it is true that no suffering saint, from 
the bed of pain ever prayed unheard the whis- 



THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE. 133 

pered prayer, "Thy kingdom come;" and while 
it is true that no discouraged man, at the end 
of a day, all worn and weary with conflict 
against wrong, ever cried in vain with tearful 
eagerness, "Thy kingdom come," yet, no less 
it is true that he who for Christ's sake makes 
any sad heart lighter, any heavy burden easier, 
is also praying potently, "Thy kingdom come." 
What is God's kingdom? It is "righteous- 
ness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." 
So, when his kingdom comes, when the mil- 
lennium dawns, it will be when righteousness, 
and peace,, and joy from the Holy Ghost fill 
every heart. Then, in ratio as we implant 
or increase all these elements, or any one of 
them in any heart, by that much we are con- 
tributing to the eventual triumph of the Re- 
deemer's kingdom. My brother, you who in- 
vited that homeless boy to your house last 
Sunday, and bade him sit at your table to 
dine, you, by so much, brought God's king- 
dom into the world. Lady, you who took an 
erring sister by the hand, and with a word of 
hearty cheer, and a "God bless you," sent 
her on her way in greater hope than she has 
ever known since she became an outcast, by 



134 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

so much you brought God's kindgom into the 
world. Young lady, you who visited that old 
blind woman, who lives on a back street, and 
read to her out of the Book, the promises God 
has written for blind people, and sang to her 
that song, 

" I will guide thee with mine eye." 
you by so much brought God's kingdom into 
the world. Young man, you who amidst dis- 
couragement, and doubt as to your success, 
are teaching the members of a little Sunday- 
school class, the way to Heaven God de- 
signed, you, by so much, are helping to bring 
in the kingdom. Little child, you who on 
your way to school last Wednesday, passing 
a sick boy's window, stopped to smile and 
say, "Good morning," or inquire, "How are 
you?" and thereby brought a ray of gladness 
into a room of pain, you thus helped to bring 
in the kingdom. Unsaved soul, you who will 
to-night cleave the air of earth and Heaven 
with the prayer of the publican of the parable, 
"God be merciful to me a sinner," which cry, 
from an earnest soul, never went up but that 
there flashed down the answering pardon, and 
the peace which passeth understanding, you, 



THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE. 135 

by so much, will help to bring into the world 
Christ's kingdom. Fellow-sharers are we all 
in the work that must be done before his king- 
dom comes. Sharers oft in toil and tears, 
sharers always in grace, sharers soon in glory! 
Oh, rejoice, my friends, for the coming of 
the kingdom draweth near! The night has 
been long; the darkness has been dense; sin 
has cursed and curses still the world. Thorns 
infest the ground. I hear the wail of the 
world's sorrow, like the undertone of the 
waves that break on the long sea-shore. But 
"be not weary in well doing, for in due sea- 
son we shall reap, if we faint not." With the 
faith of Christian optimism, I see the Orient 
sky grow gray with the signs of the morning. 
The day is dawning over the mountains — the 
day "by prophet seers foretold," when crime, 
and cruelty and ignorance shall be forgotten; 
when war shall cease; when holiness shall 
dwell in every heart, and abide in every home, 
and shine from every dome and echo on every 
breeze, and ring from every steeple; when 
intemperance shall be banished, and fields of 
golden grain shall be garnered, not be crushed 
in distilleries, but to feed the hungry; when 



136 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

the shriveled hand of want shall be filled with 
plenty; when each man's weal shall be all 
men's care; when strife and quarrel shall 
hush, and they who have been foes shall clasp 
each other's palms, and swear to be brothers 
forever; when angels in Heaven, looking 
down, shall strike with glad fingers the harp 
of joy at the sight of a world redeemed and 
happy. Then shall the anthem of one be the 
anthem of all, "Glory be to the Father, and 
to the Son and to the Holy Ghost!" The 
fountains shall whisper it to the brooklets, the 
brooklets to the rivers, the rivers to the 
ocean, the ocean shall repeat it to the infinite 
sea, and the sea shall roll its waves on high, 
and beckon to the tossing forests to welcome 
the coming of Him who trod its waters cent- 
uries ago, with the doxology, "As it was in 
the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, 
world without end, Amen!" 



VIII. 

THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD — THE CITY 
OF GOD. 

" Glorious things are spoken of thee, City 
of God" — Psalms, Ixxxvii. 4. 

I^HE eighty-seventh Psalm probably be- 
longs to that period of Jewish history, 
during which that kingdom enjoyed the 
greatest prosperity. Jerusalem was the capi- 
tal. The temple was there. Its massive form 
adorned the summit of Mount Moriah. Its 
polished pillars glimmered in the sunlight, 
visible from Gerizim, thirty miles away. 
There was the palace of Solomon, bedecked 
with burnished gold from Sheba, with 
snowy silk from Araby, and with purple cloth 
from Babylonian looms. The city was famous 
also for wealth. With greedy haste the com- 
merce of all nations, in fleets that sailed the 
sea, and in caravans that crossed the deserts, 
poured treasures into the coffers of the king. 

The armies of Israel, victorious over every foe, 

137 



138 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

contributed to the glory of the capital. Not 
the eagles of Caesar in Gaul or Britian, not 
the banners of Alexander on the shores of the 
Indian Ocean, floated more triumphantly than 
the battle-flags of Israel. Once a year the 
people came from all parts of the empire to 
the temple, to keep the Passover feast. They 
blended the religious and patriotic ideas into 
one by prayer and praise and song. It is not 
strange that the Psalmist writes of such a city: 
"Glorious things are spoken of thee, O City 
of God." 

There, beneath the outspread wings of 
cherubim, dwelt the Shekinah, the visible 
token of the presence of an invisible God. 
Glorious things were seen there. Glorious 
things were taught in her synagogues. Glori- 
ous things were heard in her streets. She was 
the emblem of the most glorious things of 
all — she was a symbol of God's Church in all 
the world and the type of Heaven. John of 
Patmos, in the Apocalyptic vision, beheld 
Heaven and called it Zion, the new Jerusa- 
lem, the City of God. Inspired by the Holy 
Ghost, with the beauty of poetic imagery, and 
the power of a classic tongue, he wrote things 



THE CHRISTIANS ULTIMATE REWARD. 139 

concerning it, so glorious that even our fleet- 
est fancy and our fondest hope droop with 
weary wing, unable to follow him in his flight. 
Whatever glorious things the Psalmists wrote 
of the ancient capital are but feeble shadows 
of what poets say, and what God himself de- 
clares concerning Heaven. "Glorious things 
are spoken of thee, O City of God." 

I am of the opinion that ordinarily, it is 
with promise of better success in awakening 
to activity the energies, and to holiness the 
hearts of worshipers, that attention is directed 
to the present life, its duties and responsi- 
bilities, its worth and its dignity than to the 
Hereafter. For this reason, I have thus far 
refrained from preaching to you on any theme 
that looks wholly to the future. However, I 
have this morning solicited your thought con- 
cerning the life to come, with the desire that 
new hopes may be engendered in your minds, 
and old hopes awakened and strengthened; 
for I know that no worthy hope was ever be- 
gotten in the heart, nor holy ambition cher- 
ished, without making the present life better. 
"Every man, then, that hath this hope within 
him, purifieth himself." 



140 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

When we speak of Heaven, we understand 
it to mean a place. There are some persons 
who represent Heaven to be merely a condi- 
tion of being, a state of dreamless and uncon- 
scious rest. Such a belief has no foundation 
in the Bible. The language of Scripture 
everywhere embodies the idea of Heaven as a 
place. Did not the Savior teach that there 
are positions of honor in Heaven? Position 
contemplates relativity, which pre-supposes 
locality. He comforted his mourning disci- 
plines with the assurance, "In my Father's 
house are many mansions. I go to prepare a 
place for you." It is impossible to imagine 
deathless happiness apart from associations, 
to the thought of which locality is essential. 
It is as rational to speak of throwing our arms 
around the neck of nothing, and holding sweet 
converse with nobody, as it is to speak of 
Heaven as a state of blessedness in which the 
soul loses its identity, and sustains no rela- 
tions to any especial place. Heaven is a 
place. This is argued from the forms of 
speech by which it is represented — a King- 
dom, a Country, a Home, a Banquet, a "City 
which hath foundations." But if Heaven is a 



THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD. 141 

place, where is it? We naturally look upward 
when we speak of the abode of the blest. But 
that act is not a declaration that we regard 
the sky which happens to be above us at the 
time, as that particular part of space which 
contains Heaven. We instinctively look up- 
ward at the thought of anything supremely 
good, or true, or beautiful. It is that im- 
pulse of the mind, discoverable everywhere by 
which we, "look up to" superior objects, that 
has caused us to think of Heaven as above. 
Where is Heaven? Could our vision take in 
the universe, we might answer the question. 
But even the astronomer, with the most pow- 
erful telescope, can view but a small part of 
the infinite expanse of suns and moons and 
stars. Beyond our farthest sight are stellar 
systems, the light of which requires untold 
ages to reach the earth. Our globe, even our 
entire solar system, with its tremendous sweep 
of uncounted millions of miles, might be 
obliterated from the universe, and not be 
missed as much as a flake of snow from an 
Alpine avalanche, or a grain of sand from Sa- 
hara. The astronomer tells us that, vast as is 
the starry space, there is somewhere a center 



143 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

around which revolve all other bodies. Our 
planet revolves around the sun, but the sun 
itself is bowling around some great orb, that 
has never been sighted by mortal vision. 
That may be Heaven. At least, we are con- 
vinced that the great God and Father of us 
all, who made the stars and hung them out 
like jewels in the crown of night, like beads 
in an infinite rosary, has prepared some place 
where He more plainly reveals himself to His 
ransomed people than on earth. Where that 
place is, we may not know till our spirits are 
emancipated from the entanglements of the 
flesh, and we are borne to it on the wings of 
angels, sent to convey us there. 

"The Beautiful City! forever 

Its rapturous praises resound, 
And we fain would beheld it, but never 

A glimpse of its glory is found. 
We slacken our lips at the tender 

White breasts of our mothers, to hear 
Of its marvelous beauty and splendor, 

And catch — but the gleam of a tear; 
We compass the earth and the ocean, 

From the Orient's uttermost light, 
To where the last ripple in motion 

Lips hem of the skirt of the night, 
But the Beautiful City evades us, 

No spire of it glints in the sun, 
No glad bannered battlement shades us, 



THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD 143 

When all our long journey is done. 
Where lies it? we question and listen; 

We lean from the mountain or mast, 

And see but dull earth, or the glisten 

Of seas inconceivably vast. 
We kneel in dim fanes, where thunders 

Of organs tumultuous roll, 
And the longing heart listens and wonders, 

And the eyes look aloft from the soul. 
But the chanson grows fainter and fainter, 

Melts wholly away and is dead, 
And our eyes only reach where the painter 

Has dabbled a saint overhead. 
The Beautiful City ! O mortal, 

Far hopefully on in thy quest, 
Pass down through the green grassy portal 

That lead to to the Valley of Rest. 
There first passed the One who in pity 

Of all thy great yearning, awaits 
To point out the Beautiful City, 

And loosen the trump at the gates." 

Ah, that is our comfort. That is our cheer. 
We know not where Heaven is, but we have 
a Savior who knows. And the angels know. 
That angel that came into your home a little 
while ago, and bore away on snowy pinions 
your darling child, knew how to find the way 
safe through the twinkling lights of the sky, 
to the home where children are forever pure 
and beautiful, and where all are childlike in 
innocence and joy. We may not know where 



144 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

Heaven is, but we do know something of 
what Heaven is. "Eye hath not seen, nor 
ear heard, neither hath it entered into the 
heart of man the things God hath prepared 
for those that love Him. But He hath re- 
vealed them unto us by the Spirit." And so, 
as sometimes between two mountains peaks, 
we behold a long line of plain and valley far 
beyond; or, as through a rift in sunset clouds, 
we catch a view of the vast extent of sky, 
even so, here and there in God's word we 
catch a glimpse of the wonders that belong 
to the Heavenly life. "Glorious things are 
spoken of thee, O City of God!" 

I. Heaven is eternal. In the closing chap- 
ter of the Book, the promise is to the inhabi- 
tants of the city, "They shall reign for ever 

and ever." How long is that? We have no 
conception of it. We stand with uncovered 
heads before an octogenarian. Eighty years 
of life mean so much to us. We measure 
time by hours. Our thoughts are slow and 
halting when we try to travel over a thousand 
years. It seems so long. Six thousand years 
— why that seems forever. Yet six thousand 
years are insignificant when eternity is to be 



THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD. 145 

considered. Eternity! "Flowers fade, the 
heart withers, man grows old and dies, the 
world lies down in the sepulcher of ages, but 
time writes no wrinkles on the brow of eter- 
nity." It was an Athenian painter who, bend- 
ing over an unfinished canvas, lifted his eyes 
toward the sky in despair, and cried: "O that 

I could paint a dying groan!" So here, I 
would that there might come to you some 
faint idea of eternity. Infinite duration. 
"Punctum stans" — an ever-abiding present. 
Youth without old age. Life without death. 
To-day without to-morrow. The life-time of 
Deity. An ocean with no shore. A laby- 
rinth with no exit. How much is that? Is it 
as much as one moment of delirious delight? 
Is it as much as one night of sin? Is it as 
much as a life-time of May-day pleasure — a 
life-time, say of seventy years? Have you 
bartered an eternal Heaven for these? Then 
you are like the man in Bunyan's allegory 
who heaps up straw and stubble, withered 
leaves and faded flowers, and heeds not that 
above him hovers a radiant angel offering a 
golden crown. 

Eternity means stability. Amidst the tran- 



140 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

sient scenes of earth, how the human heart 
craves something that is changeless! Our 
childhood's home has passed away. The old 
landmarks are gone. The faces that made it 
beauteous are sleeping beneath the nesting 
grasses of the grave. Earthly homes are not 
eternal. Heaven is. Where are the cities of 
the past? Tyre and Sidon are in ruins. Even 
their site is lost. Jerusalem is buried under- 
neath the debris of centuries. Pompeii and 
Heculaneum are in ashes. Babylon is fallen. 
The Rome of Caesar is no more. Earthly 
cities are not eternal. The City of God is. 
Call the roll of nations that were once the 
boast of warrior kings — proud Egypt, haughty 
Assyria, victorious Macedonia, classic Greece, 
imperial Rome. They have passed away. 
Their palaces are heaps of crumbling marble, 
broken pillars, and ruined walls, where vipers 
hide, and the night birds moan their threnody 
of despair. Earthly nations are not eternal. 
The Kingdom of God is. All the world is 
mutable, but the Heaven of our God shall en- 
dure forever. The permanence of Heaven is 
glorious. A changeless Christ, a changeless 
Gospel, and a changeless Home! 



THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD. 147 

II. Another glorious thing spoken of the 
City of God is that it is a place of entire sat- 
isfaction. "When I awake, I shall be satisfied 
with thy likeness." Satisfied — earth knows 
no such experience. The cup of pleasure may 
be brimming, the fullest measure of success 
may be attained, the laurel wreath of honor 
may crown the victor's brow, wealth may 
wait upon the winner, but after all, there is a 
something left unsatisfied, a thirst no earthly 
fount can quench, a hunger no earthly food 
can appease, a void that naught on earth can 
fill. 

There was Burke — learned, eloquent, suc- 
cessful in all that men call success, and yet 
toward life's close, he said he would not give 
a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called 
fame in this world. Pollock writes of Byron: 

"Great man! the nations gazed and wondered much, 
And praised: and many called his evil good. 
Wits wrote in favor of his wickedness: 
And kings to do him honor took delight. 
Thus, full of titles, flattery, honor, fame, 
Beyond desire, beyond ambition full, 
He died. He died of what? Of wretchedness. 
Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump 
Of fame; drank early, deeply drank; drank draughts 
That common millions might have quenched, then died 
Of thirst because there was no more to drink." 



148 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

There was Alexander. Conqueror of the 
world, he died unsatisfied because he thought 
there were no other worlds to conquer. Ah, 
he had not thought of Heaven! He might 
have gained that too; then he would have 
been satisfied. Then there was another. He 
was a King. Sitting upon an ivory throne 
within a gorgeous palace, he wielded a sceptre 
over submissive millions. Surely he was sat- 
isfied. Far from it. He sums up all in that 
pathetic plaint, "vanity of vanities, all is 
vanity." There was another, a king and a 
warrior. On many a battle-field he had 
pitched his tent, and in many a conflict his 
sword had flashed on high. He had slain 
"his tens of thousands." He was a poet. He 
was a musician. He was a statesman. But 
he was not satisfied. He it was who wrote, 
When I awake I shall be satisfied." He 
looked for satisfaction in Heaven. Thank 
God, there, and there alone, is satisfaction. 
Every longing hope shall find its full fruition 
there. Every eager eye shall behold its ideal 
image there. Every worthy ambition shall 
meet its cherished ultimate there. Every faith- 
ful prayer shall have granted its supplication 



THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD. 149 

there. Every throbbing instinct shall realize 
its answer there. Every trusting soul shall be 
entirely satisfied there. Hallelujah! "Glori- 
ous things are spoken of thee, O City of God." 
What would it take to satisfy you? Health? 
There are no fevers, weaknesses, pestilences, 
there. Milton thought that if he could only 
have his sight, he would be satisfied. There 
is no blindness in heaven. A little lame boy 
inquired: "Do angels ever have curvature of 
the spine?" No, dear, you shall be erect and 
graceful there. Tom Marshall said when he 
was dying, "I have been crowded all my life." 
There is plenty of room in Heaven. A black 
boy said: "Sometime I shall be as white as 
you." Yes, little one, for there we shall all 
be "washed in the Blood of the Lamb." A 
little girl, the child of poverty, who never had 
heard music but once, and then only through 
a door that opened but for a moment and let 
out a flood of golden light and harmony that 
seemed divine, cried out as her tired feet 
touched the river's bank, "Now I shall hear 
music." In Heaven nothing shall be want- 
ing to satisfy the soul completely. Our Indi- 
ana poet sings (I change two words): 



150 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

"There, weary one, don't cry: 

They have broken your heart, I know, 
And the rainbow gleams of your youthful dreams 

Are things of the long ago. 
But Heaven holds all for which you sigh; 
There, weary one, don't cry, don't cry." 

3. It is a glorious thing to remember that 
in Heaven we shall possess perfect knowledge. 
"Now we see through a glass darkly, but then 
face to face. Now we know in part, but then 
shall we know even as also we are known. 
For when that which is perfect is come, then 
that which is in part shall be done away." 
Dr. Dick used to argue that the redeemed in 
Heaven will cultivate arithmetic, and geome- 
try, and trigonometry, and conic sections, and 
astronomy, and philosophy. That may be 
true, but it would make an unwelcome Heaven 
to some of us, I fear. Southey imagined 
Heaven as the home of genius. He longed to 
see and converse with the gifted minds of our 
race whose names are honored in the realm 
of letters, Milton, Dante, and Shakespeare. 
Others have thought of Heaven as a place, 
where, free from the weariness of mind and 
body, we may soar from star to star, and 
solve the mysteries of creation. Still others 



THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD. 151 

long for Heaven as an opportunity to enjoy a 
knowledge of religious truth, holiness, salva- 
tion, perfection. That view is more spiritual, 
to know God and dwell in his visible presence, 
and behold the face of "Him that sitteth upon 
the throne." At least we may be certain that 
an eternity of untiring activity is for us, and 
the whole universe of thought will be our field. 

We are babes in knowledge now, but in that 
place we shall learn to read the economy of 
God, the mysteries of grace, the Book of 
Providence. We shall learn why God dealt 
with us as He did, while we were on earth. 
That will be a glad surprise. We shall know 
why some of our prayers were unanswered, 
why some we thought unanswered, really were 
answered, and we knew it not. 

We prayed for success, God gave us poverty. 
We prayed for holiness, God gave us tears. 
We prayed for the conversion of a friend; 
God smote that one with a life-long sickness. 
We prayed for the removal of a flesh-thorn. 
We prayed, not once nor thrice, but many 
times. The flesh-thorn remained, but in the 
stillness of some night of pain, there came the 
words, "My grace is sufficient for thee." We 



153 COUNSEL AND COMFORT, 

prayed for nearness to God. A cross was laid 
upon our shoulders that seemed too heavy to 
bear. We cried out, "O Father, why is it 
thus!" In Heaven we shall know why. 

"Sometime, when all life's lessons have been learned, 

When sun and moon forevermore have set, 
The lessons our weak judgments here have spurned, 

O'er which we sat and grieved with lashes wet, 
Shall flash before us out of life's dark night 

As stars shine most in deepest tints of blue, 
And we shall see how all God's plans were best, 

And how, what seemed reproof, was love most true." 

Then, with perfect knowledge, there shall 
come a better acquaintance with one another. 

We do not know each other here. You met 
a man yesterday, and talked with him a little 
while, and went away saying, "I don't like 
him very well." Of course not. You don't 
know him yet. If you only knew him better, 
you would love him more. If we knew the 
hidden sorrows, the secret hopes, the conflicts, 
the yearnings of our neighbor's life, we would 
be more patient, and more kind. Some time 
we shall know. 

"When the mists have risen above us, 
As onr Father knows his own, 
Face to face with those that love us, 
We shall know as we are known. 



THE CHRISTIANS ULTIMATE REWARD. 153 

"Far beyond the Orient meadows 
Floats the golden fringe of day, 
Heart to heart we bide the shadows 
Till the mists have cleared away." 

Perfect knowledge in Heaven! "Glorious 
things are spoken of thee, O City of God." 

4. There shall be ample compensation for 
all our losses. Did we confess Christ? He 
will confess us. Did we contribute our mite 
to His cause? He will repay it with compound 
interest. Did we sacrifice one hour of time 
for His service? That was the best investment 
we ever made. Did we incur the ridicule of 
a few deluded world- worshipers? One smile 
of welcome, one approving word from Christ, 
will compensate us for all that. Did we part 
company with a friend, when we became 
Christians? Never mind, we have gained the 
companionship of angels by it. Did we forsake 
father, mother, brothers, sisters, houses and 
lands, for Jesus' sake? We shall receive an 
hundred fold, and life everlasting. Were we 
imprisoned for conscience ' sake? We are be- 
yond the reach of prison bars and bolted doors, 
beyond the fear of clanking chains, and gloomy 
cells. Were we burned at the stake for allegi- 
ance to the truth? No hell-kindled fagot can 



154 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 

torture the quivering flesh now. Were we 
counted poor, or foolish, or fanatic, because 
we turned our backs to fashion's form, and 
turned deaf ears to the sin-sirens that lured 
us to ill? The riches of God are all ours now. 
Such is Heaven. 

"Light after darkness, 

Gain after loss, 
Strength after weakness, 

Crown after cross, 
Sweet after bitter, 

Songs after fears, 
Home after wandering, 

Praise after tears.' ' 

Oh, strive to win Heaven. A prepared 
place for prepared people. Heaven may be 
nearer than any of you think. Some of you 
who hear me to-day will spend Christmas in 
Heaven. Then you shall know its joy, its 
bliss ineffable. Then you shall see that after 
all, the most glorious thing in Heaven is not 
its eternity, nor its effulgent light; not its liv- 
ing trees, nor its silver river; not its glittering 
crowns, nor its grassy sea; not its golden 
streets, nor its fragrant flowers, but the all 
embracing, all-enrapturing, all-satisfying, all- 
compensating presence of the Blessed Christ. 
That will be glory, that will be beauty, that 
will be music, that will be Heaven for you. 



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